Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead
by Elliot Bowers
Summary: Still living in that old apartment, Heather tries to live a typical life. She is instead found by an otherworldly cult and sent to another place.
1. Chapter 1

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

"The Sound of Silence"

Lyrics and Music by Simon & Garfunkel

Chapter 1—Pain of Existence and Reality

_It was like seeing with dying eyes. Everything was hard to see, everything so dim and blurry… There were walls here. All four walls of this place were made of rusty metal blocks that were uneven, everything barely illuminated by way of greasy florescent light-tubes—electricity supplied with grimy cables. The lights flickered, and things…_sharpened into focus. Details became a bit clearer even though the lights were all really low.

In addition to the chunky and uneven metal blocks of the walls, there was a tiled floor. Maybe it was neat and new-looking several hundred years ago, but it was not any more. They were stiff with a hard and dark-red grit. As for the ceiling, there barely seemed to be a ceiling above—just a hellish jumble of grimy pipes and nasty cables. As for where the dried blood on the floor came from, it was because some of the pipes carried the thick red liquid… Over all was the rhythmic and distant sound of thrumming machinery. Now the girl could see more details of this place. This place in this world would have been grotesque and disgusting to others. But the girl was not at all disgusted. After all, she should have been used to this kind of place.

_They_ ran the machines, the beings of this place. _They_ could not exactly be considered "people," at least not in the normal sense—but they were intelligent. This was where many of them came from and existed. And sometimes, some of them came from other places. It was why they were so strange to look upon. Somehow, she knew why. What the girl did not know was why she was here.

As if in response to the questioning thought in her mind, some of the machinery began to _thrum-m-m _more loudly. _Flick-flicker_ went some of the haphazardly wired florescent light-tubes. _Flickety-blink! _There was an awful and high-pitched _keening_ sound that began drilling into the girl's mind… Then one of _them _appeared.

Now it was standing on the gritty floor, this one—a figure standing just over six feet tall and dressed in what was probably once a mascot-style bunny suit from an amusement park. It was generally a very typical bunny suit of the sort found in an amusement park: a fluffy furry body with a white-colored tummy area, the arms and legs also furry. But the head of the bunny suit was different—not any sort of familiar head seen before… The head was fronted with a chrome skull-face as skeletal as they were metal.

The metal forehead had a solid and sleek look to it. Below that, the lower half was an articulated metal jaw, silvery teeth. Sharp metal cheeks jutted out from beneath the eyes… Those eyes were like chrome knobs. Though without pupils, it seemed as if those eyes could see _everything. _

_A six-foot bunny-rabbit, wearing the Grim Reaper's face._ Any other place, any other time, the girl would have laughed. But she knew why the manlike creature wore the bunny suit. It was because of what happened to him. Something had to have happened to him for him to exist in _this _place.

Then came the words from the six-foot figure in the bunny suit. _You will have been here yesterday. Tomorrow is to be here yesterday. Days gone by still exist in another place. You are welcomed. _There was a _flick-flickering _of the lights.

It was hard for the girl to tell if the figure in the bunny suit was speaking—or if the words were echoing from some of the strange machinery beyond the walls. Maybe the voice was in her head? Things were sometimes funny like that in this world.

_Ah-hah!_ The being in the bunny suit suddenly _whipped _up the right arm, furry fingers pointing. _Flick-flicker, _went the lights. _Buzz… _That machinery began ratcheting up again. Everything was becoming…_blurred again. As the girl began to transition, she felt herself turning, then falling onto her back—before floating upwards towards the pipes. The way she was now, the girl could easily float in this Other world. It was because dead people can float if they want. She floated up towards the pipes._

…

Somewhere, there was a car. The car was parked in a dark place—the darkness being darker than the universe. _Bzzt_…A blazing burst of electricity turned on the vehicle. _Fzzt! _There was another blazing burst of electricity as the thing came on. Static and white noise filled the speakers. Only after moments did the static fade…into a song.

_Hello darkness, my old friend._

_I've come to talk with you again_

…_.because a vision softly cree-eeping!_

…_left its seeds while I was slee-e-eping!_

_And the vision that was planted in my brain_

_Still remains._

…_within the sounds of silence…_

…

"_Whoa!_" exclaimed Heather, suddenly sitting up at the counter. She nearly fell off the high stool next to the cash register. Yes, she was still at her work-place and had not gone anywhere. Well, it was back to work. _Just an ordinary nap-time nightmare_, she thought. _happens_ _to normal people all the time. _So thinking, the girl stood up—slender, a petite height of just under five feet tall-- and stretched. She didn't know how or why she fell asleep just now. Luckily, her boss wasn't around.

It was another work-a-day shift for Heather, a summertime day at the mall. As such, she was dressed for the weather in jeans and tank-top—the close-fitting jeans fitting the shape of her legs and hips, the tight tank-top baring just a strip of her flat and vaguely muscular abdomen, her arms bared to the shoulders. Her fluffy blonde hair was cut so it curtained the sides of her face and just barely ended at the bottom-line of her delicate jawline.

Shorter people usually didn't have the slender figure for wearing such a revealing outfit—tight all over (especially tight at her butt), and baring both arms, showing more of her lean musculature. Some of her friends were envious of her figure. Exercise wasn't the real reason why she always looked slender and athletic. It had something to do with where she came from, what she was.

Well, she preferred not thinking about that, it having to do with where she came from. It was like that nightmare she just had. There was the bustle and sound of the mall crowd beyond the glassed-in doors while she walked around this small bookstore. She walked the shelves of the bookstore to make sure that all the texts were in place—hardbacks, paperbacks, things like that. The thing to do was make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Things had to be relatively neat even when the manager wasn't around. It wasn't that she was a neat-freak or anything like that… She just wanted to be extra-sure she kept her job—a job something hard to find when you were barely a real person.

A real person… Heather wasn't sure if she was a real person sometimes. She was born and raised in a town that didn't exist any more, born under bizarre circumstances barely understandable to even herself. Now her identity was relied on a faked-up birth certificate with an equally faked-up name. Her driver's license—as if she would ever be able to afford a car or learn how to drive—were brought the same way that illegal immigrants brought theirs. Douglas had the connections for all that, no questions asked.

On top of that, she dyed her hair blonde. "Heather" was not her birth-name, not even the first phony name she had. She stopped walking between the shelves. Her cheeks were becoming hot. _Damn…_came the thought, lowering her head. "Good day."

"_Huh!" _That voice made Heather give a start, a gasp, making her put a hand to her own throat. It felt as if her heart leapt there, being surprised like that! Now she was looking at a tall, thin young woman—one wearing an outfit of black skirt and white blouse, the skirt going to mid-thigh. Her sharp-featured pale face framed with straight dark hair that was cut shoulder-length. Her silky dark hair was a dark contrast to the unusual deep blue color of her eyes and cream-pale skin. As for her height, the young woman was "tall" to Heather.

It was time to put on the "customer service" act. "Oh, I'm sorry about that," said Heather, speaking to this new customer. She lowered her hands and gave a shrug. "Welcome… How can I help you? We're well-stocked today in most any subject." _Now that I've probably creeped you out, can we still do business?_

"We are looking for something," said the young lady in black-and-white clothing—a small black purse slung over a slender shoulder. She gave a toss of her head, barely a whisper of her dark silky hair as she looked to the left at some books on the shelf there. Her left arm raised, she used slender fingers to stroke the bindings of a certain book. "Are these in fact texts on the supernatural?"

"You mean, like 'speculative non-fiction?'" asked Heather. She kept eye-contact with this new customer—this new customer that seemed to have the same eye-color as herself. That voice had a slight and unusual accent to it, a foreign sort of pronunciation to the vowels. It was hard for her to place. "This store has the best selection you can find for miles." She looked up and to the right, gestured to the shelf—noting the name of the author on the book's binding.

"Yes… We could well-say 'speculative non- fiction,'" said the female customer. There was that accent again. "Is there in fact _more? _The subject matter is especially pertinent to the search—one that continues despite setbacks."

Now Heather was beginning to think this customer was a bit on the weird side. Then again, Heather wasn't quite normal herself. "The author who wrote that text, he was pretty prolific. Half the shelf is his stuff alone. But if you were to look just a bit lower…" Heather bent over slightly and put her left hand to a knee, used her right hand to also gesture to another shelf. "Funny thing is, he also wrote one book on UFO's…if you're into that subject matter. But since its just ghosts you're looking into, he wrote plenty. What exactly are you in the market for, anyway?"

The young lady pointed a finger at a thick book that so happened to be next to Heather's left shoulder. "I should like to look closely to that," Voiced the customer. Heather picked out the book that seemed to be on the mind of the customer. It was entitled _Source,_ by Brad Bell—a hefty text in paperback. She then straightened her back, handed the book to the customer. When Heather did this, giving the book, she felt the edge ward touch of the young lady's fingernails—a feeling that made her shiver a little.

"Hmm…" mused the young lady aloud. She glanced at the text and then looked into Heather's eyes. "This very well could be that which we have been seeking for so long. Then again, what is _two years_ compared to the vast sway of eternity?"

_Two years…? _Heather knew better than to echo that statement, but she could not keep her eyes from widening. She knew when to keep her mouth shut. Instead, she played stupid—not hard to do since so many people her blonde hair, her good looks and just assumed her a bit on the slow side. "Really now? You've been looking _that _long? There are computers and stuff that could help you find things now. This chain of bookstores has an entire catalogue available by phone. There's also an inventory you can call up and stuff, like calling a library."

The young woman stared at Heather for a hard moment. Those blue eyes of hers seemed _so much _like a match for Heather's own. And for that moment, Heather had the idea that maybe the dark-haired girl in black-skirt and white blouse could maybe…_see a little into people's brains. _"Indeed…" said the dark-haired young woman. "It truly amazes how things once lost can crop up in everyday bookstores. There they are, waiting to be picked up—as though waiting."

"Indeed it is. Things tend to be on the odd side sometimes, is that not right?" said Heather, feeling herself begin to slip into the customer's speech patterns. "We…seem to have customers with especially good luck…then." All the while, the customer kept _staring _into Heather's eyes. Heather…_began to feel a bit dizzy. She closed her eyes…a figure standing in a darkened world. She staggered as…_things went back to normal.

"I shall take the item," said the female customer. She reached into the little purse to take out a single bill--handed it over. "This should very well overcome the cost of the item."

_Damn… Is that right? _It was a thousand dollar bill. Not that she cared too much for money. Yet the fact that a person could carry such cash around with them was odd enough. Heather wasn't evens what happened just then, but then the dark-haired girl was walking away with the book in her hand.

The slender, dark-haired girl was soon out the doors of the bookstore and gone in a whisper of long dark hair. "Hey… Wait a sec!" yelled Heather. She _yanked _open the doors and quickly stepped out into the shiny expanse of mall.

She looked left and right, only saw the shiny clean floor of the wide-open mall-space. This was the second floor of the mall, or more like a second tier: She could hear the murmur of mall customers on the first floor. Otherwise, there was no girl in dark skirt and white blouse.

Heather thought about this for a minute. That dark-haired girl could've gone into another store, having gone left or right. But then… She didn't _remember _seeing that girl go left or right. The only alternative would've been her leaping over the gleaming bronze rail and leaping to the first floor. Except the idea of a girl hopping to injury or death on a Sunday afternoon to land on the hard shiny mall floor beneath would have definitely made for a ruckus. And how did the girl walk out of the store with a book--without Heather having desensitized the little anti-theft thingy in it?

Questions, she had questions. And she was standing here with a thousand-dollar bill. She looked at it, held it up to the light shining down through the mal skylight. Yeah, it's real. But what the Hell was up with that girl? And why didn't the bookstore's door-chime sound when she walked in? Something was happening here… _Not again, _thought Heather.

…

2.

…

Heather was thinking about that girl for the rest of the work-shift, even after a few other customers came—bought items—and left. What did she look like? She was very pretty in a doll sort of way: smooth skin of a round and cute sort of face, thin…though it was odd seeing somebody with dark hair and blue eyes. Heather herself was naturally dark-haired, and her eyes were actually blue (when she didn't put in dark contact lenses). But she could tell that those weren't contact lenses. And the girl's hair was dark to the roots—not dyed. There was something familiar about that girl…

Then came six o'clock. "Well, it's time to close up," she said aloud—to no one in particular. _Talking to myself…or no one in particular, _came the thought. _I really oughtta not do that. _People who talked to themselves were close to being crazy.

In any event, she got up from where she sat atop the metal stool behind the bookstore counter—reached underneath the counter to get the log-book as so she could write down the amount of cash in the register, write down any particular issues with the store, things of that sort. Then she would check over the bookshelves for problems before locking the place down. Last thing, she grabbed her purse. Another thought, _Normal people sometimes talk to themselves: It's only when somebody answers back that there's trouble. _

When Heather first came across the offer to work here, she _hated _the idea—wanted to scream _No! _She hated it, hated the idea of working at a mall at first. Well, she had to work there. But she needed the money, really. She couldn't lean on her Dad anymore. That man was dead. And though the girl was welcomed to stay at her current home, she just couldn't bum off of somebody else for the rest of her life…however long her life would be.

Heather really needed this job—for herself. On top of that, there weren't too many jobs that she _could _take: a girl who didn't graduate from high school, whose identity papers couldn't really withstand legal scrutiny. In fact, the owner of the bookstore paid her cash-wages to avoid the paperwork issue, of having to file tax-and-working papers for a 19-year-old girl who really didn't exist legally.

So that was it… This mall was the only place with jobs available for her. The bookstore was the only means of employment. And when the girl finished closing up the shop, she would have to come back tomorrow to start working again.

…

The shopping crowd had all gone home. There was just her and a scattered smattering of other employees walking along the main indoor thoroughfare, passing through the atrium—that big open space with plants to the left and right, a high-up glass ceiling. Sunset-colored light glowed down from above. A glance up revealed a view of red-toned, sunset-colored sky above, darkening into night. It was sunset outside… She hurried her walk in going towards the distant exit.

Walking outside the mall's western entrance brought her to the bus-stop—a few other employees all dressed in various levels of looseness. It was warm outside. That orange-red tone of late-summer sunset was glowing over the trees that bordered the parking lot. She walked over to the bus-stop, which was right here.

Some other people were also waiting for the bus. Two were still dressed in the uniforms required of their jobs, though loosened around the collar. A skinny male security guard was sucking on a cigarette, the gray ghost-like smoke drifting. Heather could smell the smoke, could sort of taste it at the back of her throat as she inhaled. Ah-h-h…but she quit that habit a very long time ago. Still, a tiny little bit of the urge remained. Damn.

"We had some devilish trouble, six o'clock," said the skinny security guard between puffs of smoke. _Huh? _Heather looked at him. "The jerk kept asking about some girl. He wouldn't shut up about her. Damned stalker…" He sucked some more out of the cigarette. "We had to interrogate 'em in the brig. Yeah, you know the place used to be the sports basement—all that blood and crap."

Heather thought, _Like, the mall has a jail? _She took a glance back at the huge clean-brick structure. It really was gigantic—no telling if there really _was _a jail. Thing was, she only worked at one store and maybe shopped at a few others. And…it has a basement?

Wait a second. "Shut 'em up for good," said the mall security guard into the cell-phone. Heather glanced and noticed a hint of a smile on the man's face. "He was crying for oatmeal or something. What the Hell is wrong them?" She also noticed the stains on the fingers of the security guard's fingers as he held that cellular phone of his. "Shoulda seen it. It's been a while since we had _that _much work… Didn't think there was so much of the red stuff in 'em. When we were done, the floor was _covered. _That idiot. He didn't even have the sense to control his own bleeding. I swear… I _swear _to the true God."

Heather glanced to notice stains by the fingernails. The stains were dark—sort of like the way her fingertips looked whenever she to deal with one of her own bloody noses. Blood… The security guard looked to Heather and winked.

_Huh! _Heather backed slowly… Those blue eyes of hers widened, her mouth opening in shock. She looked at the nearby employees. Some glanced at her. Others just kept looking at the sunset… It was as if nobody heard or cared about what the Hell was going on here. If some guy with bloodstained fingers could talk so casually about slaughtering somebody, there was no telling what that wink could mean. She wanted to run to a payphone and scream for the cops, right now.

Then the bus pulled up. The thing to do was get on it now—or wait two hours or so for another one. After all, this was the Sunday schedule. She did _not _want to wait around here another "two hours or so"—especially since this security guard was talking bloody murder. It was making for a tornado of feelings spinning into nightmares.

_Fwish-h-h… _That was the sound of the bus door opening up. It so happened to be lined up with her own sneaker-covered feet. Heather quickly stepped onto the vehicle itself just as the tall skinny man began quickly walking in this direction. _No way…_she thought. There was irritation on her face and maybe a little anger. Who the Hell was that guy?

Never mind that. She just wanted to get the _Hell _away from here! Heather quickly stepped up into the bus. There was a big muscular driver behind the wheel—a stranger. She reached to pen her purse to get the right amount of change. The bus-fare was one-sixty… Coins, coins! Ooh good, she found the right amount--quarters and a dime. _Clinkety-clank-k-kk_… Those coins went into the depths of the bus-change machine.

Then Heather quickly found herself a seat on the right side, and she stood up as so she could see over the seat in front—looking to see if that guard-guy with bloodstained fingers was getting on. And she kept looking as two other employees also climbed on. If that guy did come on, she'd _scream! _

He didn't. As the bus engine gurgled away from the bus-stop, Heather took one last look back. She now saw that the security guard was different. Now he had a pale face that looked too big for his head. The chin sort of drooped down and hung loose, while the forehead flopped like a beret. This creature waved as this bus sped off. It was as if the guard was waving, _Bye-bye…_ _See you!_

_What the Hell! _Heather jerked herself away from the cold bus-window. But in seconds, this bus was so far away from that spot in the sidewalk that she could no longer see who or what just waved at her. That wasn't a security guard. That was something else.

Heather began to feel just a little bit nervous… Then came her feeling a _lot _more nervous. She crossed bare arms and sort of shrugged her shoulders as she sort of leaned forward. A very cold feeling coursed through her. It was a fear that she wished she would never have had to feel ever again in her life.

So things were beginning to go wrong, were they? Just like last-time, it just one little mistake in reality. There she was, trying to live a normal life. Then things went wrong.

_Oh my God, it's gonna start happening again, _she thought to herself. _I just know it. _Already, she could feel the edges of a headache at the periphery of her mind. _They're coming for me. _As for who _they _were, the girl hoped to have gotten rid of them years ago—like one a fear of the dark or a smoking habit.

A ripping demon of a headache…_began to sear through her head. She gritted her teeth to keep herself from screaming out, instead clutched her delicate hands into hard fists. Instead of scre-e-e-aming, the girl put on a sort of prolonged grunt, a gritting of teeth. The headache was so intense that it temporarily hazed over her vision with dazzles of pain until…_it vanished.

Heather sniffed, wiped some tears. Yes, the headache was intense enough to have brought tears to her eyes. Her head was still spinning a little, but it was better than it outright feeling as if demons were drilling fiery drills into her brain.

Now, she hoped she didn't embarrass herself. Embarrassment would lead to someone calling an ambulance. Next would come medical questions. Those people would in turn ask about her past and her real name (since her real name wouldn't show up on any federal database request. People would find out that her entire life and existence was a lie.

Nobody should have seen her reaction—given where she was seated. Since she wasn't too tall to begin with, the top of her head barely approached the top of the seat and was therefore hidden from views front and back. The bus-window was to her right, a window looking into the oncoming night. Looking to her left made for a view of a creature in a bunny suit--outlined against the burning-red sunset that glowed through the bus windows.

It was as if the cyborg-faced figure in the bunny suit was there all along—or appeared with flawless silence. _I will _not _scream, _she thought_. I will _not _scream. I will _not, not, not… repeated Heather mentally to herself. _Maybe that thing is not sitting there. Maybe I'm just imagining it. Yeah… People see stuff all the time. Maybe it's just some mall-guy in a suit. _

Trouble was, there were no rabbit-mascot promotions happening at the mall—no employees dressed that way: not today, not yesterday, not ever. She hear that the last time some employee was told to dress up in an animal costume at the mall, he ended up in a freak accident with him tripping down an escalator and having his head crushed with a falling cart. Since then, it was a policy of no more animal costumes. The _only _place Heather _ever _saw bunny suits was in the world of a demon's nightmare.

As if responding to her thoughts, the six-foot figure half-turned its large head in Heather's direction. Heather went wide-eyed. The figure in the bunny suit nodded its head, the metal ears of the face-mask bobbing slowly. It knew something.

Then came the figure's voice. _They will not let us rest, _came the voice. _We will have been at peace. He is up and about. _The voice sort of echoed, as if the voice in the mask was distorted. No… It was more like the voice was also _in _her head. She couldn't tell. _Just give us our sleep._

"Hey…" she said. Heather found it a little hard to speak—considering the nature of the figure sitting across from her. "Who are you? _What _are you?"

Asked the thing in the bunny suit, _What_ _do you know about time travel? _The thing in the bunny suit let the question hang. It expected thought.

"Are you talking to _me? _Like, I don't understand you," voiced Heather. "Hey… Are you listening?"

_This world is not all that there is. Do you know about rifts? Other worlds, they have people. The people can be full of pain. It rots from the inside. _The figure in the bunny suit turned its head to the left—large metal face now facing forward_. There happens to be more than one happening. Moonlight hands are not going away. _

"Other worlds…?" asked Heather. She heard the question from the figure in the bunny suit. And with a sick sort of feeling did she have an understanding of what was happening. _It _was happening again. It was happening to her. "What's going on here? Are you one of _them?_"

_Why do you ask what you already know is true? _The question was somewhat rude, maybe. Or it was more of a pointing of the truth? She had an idea of the truth.

Also true was how Heather could not sense any sort of anger or hatred in the voice. As pointedly rude as the question was, there was no irritation or chastisement in the question—the tone of voice so full of sadness… There was actually just a bit of sadness mixed in it. The figure in the bunny suit asked the same question the way a person would speak while pouting She couldn't really be angry at that saddened voice. In fact, the girl actually began to feel a little sorry for the six-foot figure in the bunny suit… That tone of voice actually reminded her of a saddened person who lost something especially important and was feeling impetuous.

_Are there mirrors? I should like to know if possible, _continued the figure in the bunny suit. There was a sunset-crimson _glare _from the bus windows coming from the bus-windows beyond the costumed figure. That glare temporarily…overtook Heather's vision.

That glare faded. Now it seemed as if the sunset was different—a lot different. The darkly beautiful color of the sunset was now more red and vibrant than it should have been. It was a sunset that was a more violent crimson color, parts of it wavering and churning…. If Heather didn't know any better, she would have thought that the sunset was on fire. But it just wasn't any sort of fire. It looked like a radioactive sunset outside, like looking at the sunset of another world…

_Do not just ask where, but also ask _whencame the rabbit-figure's voice. Then the figure in the bunny suit began to talk nonsense, as if the energy needed to maintain its presence was…weakening for now… _Every daughter should know the smell of her own father. A barrel full of rotten legs, the red-dead churning thrumming of blood-powered machines… It's all full of radiation. The radiation… _That said, there was a glow from the bunny-figure's mask. The light flickered, and there was another sunset-colored haze of light…

Heather found herself looking at an empty seat. There was no-one sitting there. _Huh? Like, I could've sworn there was something, _she thought to herself. _Something's not right about this. I don't like this at all, not even a little. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Silent Hill—The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 2--Encroachments

Heather had been sort of leaning against the right-side window in a tired half-daze. Bare arms crossed, she looked down and out the window at passing city streets. It took an effort to keep herself from falling into the warm darkness of sleep. She was just _so_ tired, working that all-day job. But if her eyes closed, she fully expected to see something she didn't want to see.

She thought her childhood problems were over. The problems of her past self should have been defeated and gone. Once upon a time, Heather had dealt with nightmares come true, defeated them. Since then, this girl thought she could face anything. Yet _anything _now seems to have meant a return of those same things, some problems. _They _were back. She could _feel_ the edges of the darkness trying to return to her life. Now what? When were _they _going to try and get her? _Squi-i-e-e-e-e…! _

_What! _Heather was _yanked _out of her semi-dozing half-daze as everything seemed to be _flung forward…! _All around was a high-pitched sound of metallic torture, like something invisible being slaughtered! She looked around. What' going on here?

Oh, never mind. That was the _squeak _of just poorly maintained bus brakes. The bus decelerating was what jostled Heather in her seat. A look out the window revealed a night-time local city view, a section of sidewalk illuminated by a streetlamp. Yeah, and this was her stop. The girl was sort of lucky the driver just didn't go past since nobody pressed the stop-signal thing.

So Heather stood up and re-slung her purse-strap over her right shoulder. A step left, and she was in the bus' aisle—a few other people sitting in seats. Most of them were men. She carefully stepped in such a way as to keep herself from brushing up against them. The bus aisle was designed for much bigger people, but Heather was on the thin side and had more clearance than usual.

Still, there were times when the other passengers got a little nasty. There were some times when people would sit sort of halfway out in the aisle and brush a shoulder against her body as she passed. Sometimes it was a quick hand… She tried going to the cops once. They told her to also complain to the bus company—which didn't do much. It was one of the problems a girl had in riding public transportation. One of these days, she was going to dress up in big billowing black skirts and a fur coats to keep the occasional set of groping paws off her. But the weather around here seldom became cool enough for that sort of outfit.

Finally, having avoided contact with the other passengers, she stepped down the bus-steps and onto the sidewalk—so entering the warm city night. There was that warm difference between the air-conditioned inside of the bus and the humidity of the summer evening. Standing here, she thought back to that idea of her wearing big floppy clothes.

_I'd definitely burn up, _she thought. There was the gurgling _r-r-rumble _ of the bus as it drove off. Now there were the five blocks home to walk, walking by the light of streetlamps along streets lined with short buildings. A subway used to take her just over a block from home, but _no way _would she ever use a subway ever again unless she really, _really _had to use one. Some cars zoomed past along the street. Those were likely other people going home from work as well.

The girl stepped up to a quick pace in walking, light sneakers padding her footsteps. There was sometimes that feeling of coming home from the mall to find somebody dead—which was why she moved so fast. She could feel the resistance of her tight jeans stretching even more as she lengthened her stride, feeling the air on her face and arms as she sped up. The walk home had just begun.

It was just _such _a long way home. It was like she couldn't move fast enough. Her breath was coming in quicker gasps as her fast pace continued, her head of hair fluttering and legs moving with as fast strides as possible. _Like, maybe I should chill out, _she thought. _There'd be no need to rush if he was killed. _

That thought in mind, Heather deliberately slowed herself down. She clutched her little purse and resumed a saner walking pace going along this sidewalk. Yeah, _why _move so fast? It wasn't like getting there in a hurry would help much. Besides, there was nothing to worry about other than the usual.

What was the usual? Like, there was always the chance a mugger would step out from an alley, threatening her with a knife or something. Or there was maybe a pervert who decided to follow a girl home from work... But she wasn't really worried about that; her stun-gun was a comfortable weight in her purse. That and she had other ways of dealing with people who directly threatened her.

It wasn't as if she carried much money—as if she ever had much money. Helping pay the apartment's rent, buying clothes and stuff took large bites out of her paycheck--_especially _at the end of every month. Luckily, she didn't eat much. Food at the local store could be pretty expensive.

It was some minutes before the apartment building was barely in sight. It was just maybe a story taller than the blocky buildings near it, next door to an office-type building and a restaurant after that. There were the somewhat odd smells foods from the restaurant, smells on the wind. For some reason, she thought that the restaurant served roasted meats that ought not be roasted—like dogs or cats. Yeah, and the people who worked in the office-type building probably went there every day at lunch to eat it, too. _Ew._

Walking past the office building, the side-entrance to the apartment building was pretty close. She went around the wall and around the corner. The entrance was right here and lit with a single lamp in the gray concrete above the entrance. Somebody stood in the shadows to the right of the apartment entrance. It was a man eight feet tall, a green face, and dressed in a black trenchcoat.

No… No there wasn't anybody. _Cool it, _she thought to herself. All the same, her footsteps were pretty quick as she went for the three steps up to the side-entrance. She pushed on the familiar weight of the metal doors to go into the building.

…

Inside the building, she came to the hard and gritty first floor—coming into the apartment's foyer-entrance. It was a familiar view of the gritty blue-and-gray tile pattern of the ceramic floor. Well, the tiles must have been white a long time ago or something. Decades of shoes and boots brought in grit that sort of ground into the floor. Left and right were hard gray concrete walls—the mailboxes the right side of this foyer, ceiling above.

Her place was right of the first juncture, a hallway. She walked past doors with other apartments, the sounds of televisions muffled by closed doors. One door had a thick tangy smell of alcohol wafting from it even though the door was closed. To her, that smell always made her a little sad. One door had the sound of a middle-aged couple arguing and yelling at each other. The husband was screaming. Then the wife started yelling right back.

_Sounds like they're at it again, _thought Heather. The girl didn't know them personally. But she knew that they had weeks where they argued _constantly_. Thank goodness they didn't have any kids. They'd be traumatized. Maybe those hypothetical kids wouldn't be any worse off than she would be, but all the same...

Kids, this apartment complex had some kids. They lived on the upper floors. Sometimes when she had mid-day Saturday shifts, she could hear them outside her apartment door as they went out to play with soccer balls and stuff. Yet children were the exception. It was a good thing because there wasn't a playground for miles.

Most couples that lived around here were middle-aged, some elderly. Most of the people who lived on this ground floor were here because it was easier than having to carry things groceries on rickety old elevator trips. Another reason was that it was cheaper to live down here. A person doesn't have much money when old: not able to work much. But a third more immediate reason for living on the ground floor was the fact that it would be easier for emergency medical service personnel to get to you in a jiffy if you keeled over sick or something. Not that Heather knew about too many old people who were that far along, but it was better safe than sorry. Douglas knew more about the neighbors than she did, though.

Then again, Heather didn't know too many people at all. It was better that way. As long as they didn't know her or about her, they wouldn't ask too many questions about who she was and where she came from. Those questions were best not answered since her legal papers weren't exactly legal anyway. They'd probably want to ask inappropriate questions about how a young girl like her ended up living with a middle-aged man.

She made it to her own apartment door. A quick dig in her purse, and she had the door-key—slid the door key into the lock. There was the familiar thick _click _of the mechanisms as she turned the key to unlock the dead-bolt. The same had to be done for the lock on the doorknob. Now she walked to her own apartment door and unlocked it. The lights were out…

…

_Click! _In this apartment, now the lights were on for the living room beyond the short hall. The central air conditioning was on. It wasn't much in the way of air conditioning. But it worked enough to make the air comfortable. Some air conditioning worked until indoor places felt frosty.

She closed the door. Inside, the apartment was largely the same—except for a few changes since Douglas moved in. There was still the small square living room, a carpet with a big blue sort of lounge-chair in front of a big black-and-gray cable-TV. The bookshelf left of the television still had lots of mystery books, beneath which were lots of magazines and video tapes that Douglas collected. A kitchen area was attached to this living-room area. Douglas' bedroom was a rearranged version of the way Dad had it—not that Heather ever went in there too often.

"_D-o-oouglas, I'm ho-o-ome!_" she sang out. There was no response… Of course he wasn't here. The living room television and radio weren't wasn't on. It must mean that he was out on a case or out drinking, the drinking happening on weekends. He was a private detective and almost never said no to a job. Actually, he seemed to have a _lot_ of cases these days—especially since that time two years ago. And the fact that he was out on a case was proven by the little note on the TV. She read it:

_Heather_,

_Something came up. The client wanted me in Brahms right away. It turns out there was a lead in last week's case. And I cleaned out half the beer from the fridge like you asked before I left._

--_Douglass_

Yeah, this one was big. And with big cases, he was usually gone for a day, maybe three. A yawn came to her mouth, making her stretch and put a hand to her lips. And she now felt as if she was going to be out—feeling herself fall asleep. The thing to do now was have a hot shower, get into a change of clothes, then maybe eat something before taking a nap. She had the habit of skipping meals just from being too tired sometimes and not being hungry too often.

The girl opened her bedroom door and went in. The purse went on her dresser-drawer. Sneakers off, now Heather undressed and picked up her clothes to put them in the hamper… She then stepped naked and barefooted to the attached bathroom. All her shower stuff was in there. Well, maybe some people would probably think her some kind of exhibitionist, habits like this. She slept naked some weekend mornings too, when she wasn't exercising that morning: just wake up and go to the shower. It wasn't as if somebody was going to walk in on her.

This may be a little two-bedroom apartment, but at least she had a bathroom attached to her own room. A bathroom and her bedroom, it was her own little place in the world, inside of the apartment. She didn't have to worry about anybody coming in.

She walked into the bathroom, stepped into the shower. _Sque-e-e, squee… _Hot water on first, then came a twisting on of the cold. Oh yeah, the water was still hot. There were times when the hot water went on the fritz and a person had to settle for a quick cold one. Not now, though! Nice hot water came down on her, allowing her to stand there and relax in the hot spray. Oh _God…! It felt so good!_ She nearly fell asleep standing up. The water always felt good—soaking her muscles.

And Heather stayed there for who knows how long, her head tilted back and her eyes closed as the relaxing hot shower of water cascaded on her. Oh jeez… What a day this was. As she stood there, thoughts began to play out in her mind. What was up with that vision she had of that freaky guy in the bunny suit? It maybe had something to do with that nap-time night she had. Nap at work, things happen. Things just happen sometimes. Maybe it was just the stress of having to deal with female customers with weird accents. Then again, Heather wouldn't mind meeting the girl again—in full daylight.

Only eventually did Heather come out of the shower. She toweled herself dry before walking back into her bedroom to dress. She stood in front of her dresser-drawer and picked out a set of underclothes—then dressed in loose shorts and sleeveless tank-top shirt, a set of clean socks for her feet before putting on slippers. It was a weird combination: shorts and shirt with slippers. But it was too early to get dressed up in nightgown and robe… The last thing grabbed before leaving the bedroom was a book she bought some time ago on an employee discount—a book about spiritualism and ghosts.

The showered and freshly dressed girl left her bedroom. _Cli-click._ Her bedroom door was closed behind her. She took a few steps… She stopped. More exactly, she paused. Something didn't feel right.

This was her now standing in the middle of this living room, next to the blue arm-chair. It was usually quiet this time of day, though there was the slight sound of car traffic going by this apartment building. But now it was like there was a muffling of the sounds that usually came through the apartment walls. It was like someone—or something was _suffocating _the sounds coming from outside this apartment. Heather could slightly sense someone.

"H-hello?" she called out. The only other person that ever came in here was Douglas. They almost never had company over. So who came in? Nobody else had the keys to this place besides Douglas was the supervisor. And the old guy would never come in without knocking first.

There was still nobody. _Well…? I may as well go check it out. _Walking cautiously, Heather made her way over to the apartment entrance. Of course there was nobody here. There was nobody there—nobody at all. But the noise was just so distinct. _Huh, must've been next door, _came the thought.

So off she went, retreating back deeper into this apartment to make herself some tea. Hot beverages like tea were only possible this time of year in an air-conditioned apartment. Dad used to make tea and read mysteries at this kitchen table whenever he wasn't working on his next book. Now here Heather was, sitting in the same place she sat when with him—opening a book of her own for reading. It was times like this that made her think of Dad not really being gone. Well, if ghosts were real, maybe he could still be around. She turned to the book's table of contents, picked an interesting chapter, then turned to it to start reading.

…

2.

…

Later, Heather was still reading at the dinner table and still sipping tea—her knees together and ankles crossed beneath the chair. _Weird stuff, _she thought. According to this book, time doesn't matter to ghosts. On one hand, it was common knowledge that ghosts come out from far-flung times of the past. That could mean a ghost may have its origins from ten years, a hundred years, any amount of time… Some countries of the world have well-known historical sites where phantasms have been photographed and recognized as being reminiscent of eras specific to the location. The importance of such locations passed centuries ago, yet the spirits remain.

Moreover true was how some of the most bizarre and horrific manifestations are some of the oldest. For example, in one country, there are eyewitness accounts of shadowy entities with bizarre shapes. Late-night security guards and workers at one historical site sometimes encounter "twisted" entities. These figures appear to be walking shadows that manifest themselves both indoors and outdoors. The "twisted" descriptions come out of how these figures will appear to walk as if deformed with horrific injuries. Some of these shadowy forms stride with arms wrenched the wrong ways. Worse still are the figures that walk the night with their upper bodies bent completely back, or those that move as if their heads cannot remain straight on their necks. The security guards who report seeing such figures also claim that, even on nights where the figures do not appear, howling sounds can be heard on the winds.

It so turns out that these "twisted" ones are presumably the ghosts of people who have been victim to collapsing tunnels. There were points in history where people sought escape and secret travel by way of hastily dug tunnels beneath the earth. They were dug in such a hurry that there was no time to make them any wider than the width of a human being. Likewise, such tunnels were made with little to no concern for safety: the tops of these small underground tunnels barely held up by way of empty barrel-shells or pieces of wood. The wood would collapse, and people would be trapped underground. The injuries from collapsing tunnels killed many.

Yet many more slowly suffocated to death—screaming in pain and suffering as the tunnel air went stale. It was death and dying in darkness underground. They screamed and died for the help that would never come. And they scream to this day.

_Ugh… _Heather crossed her arms. _Like, that's freaky, _she thought to herself. The idea of dead people walking around like _twisted_ shadows was a messed-up thought to her. They died terrible deaths. Then it sounds like they suffer even after their death. She read into the next section.

According to this next section, there are those who claim that ghosts can sometimes appear from the future. It again returns to the notion that the dimension of time does not matter to spiritual entities. If the past is merely one extension of time, then the future is more of the same. Spirits can therefore move "forwards" and "backwards" through time as easily as one may two ways along a pathway. Such sightings are less common than entities presumed to be from the past. Nevertheless, instances of phantasms from future times have been recorded.

One such case involves a middle-aged man in a Western city. He reported to authorities that he saw a troubling young woman sitting in a subway car as the train sped through tunnels, a young lady dressed in bloody and torn clothes. He tried asking her questions, only to find her looking sadly at him. She would then stand up…and disappear as fast as a blink. Consequently, he stopped riding that particular train. The train was destroyed in a criminal act six weeks later—the suspects not found, though official suspected the children of a disgruntled transportation employee.

Someone was at the door. "_Be there in a sec!_" sang out Heather. She used a slip of paper for a bookmark to mark her place in the book. Walking to the apartment doorway...suddenly made her feel sad for some reason...and a little bit woozy. Whoa, maybe she needed that nap after all. Never mind that. Soon Heather was at the door. She opened the door a crack, just enough for her to see. The bronze door-chain kept it from opening all the way. Douglas would just look through the peephole, but Heather wasn't tall enough to look up into the little security peephole. The trouble with everything in this country was how it was designed for people six feet tall.

Looking through the space between door and jamb allowed her to see the person. It was a sharp-faced girl dressed in tight-fitting corduroy pants, along with a sweater that clung to her upper body—a dark-haired sort with dark eyes to match. Her outfit clung to her slim form in such a way that it revealed all the contours of her body in a vaguely obscene way--even though it covered everything.

Heather thought to herself, _What gives? _What was up with dark-haired strangers today? First at work, now one is here. And wasn't it a bit hot out there for a sweater and jeans together?

The warmly dressed dark-haired girl folded her hands primly in front of herself. "Um-m-m... Uh-h... Hi in there. I, uh, have s-s-something to tell you. I-its about a certain town. Y-y-you know what I'm talking about?"

Mentioning a _certain town _could only mean one place. To that, Heather nearly slammed the door shut just now. It took an effort not to do that, lock _all _the locks, put the phone-stand against the door and call the cops! _A certain town? Hell no! Screw you and the horse you rode in on! But…_

But if it wasn't for the fact that Heather somehow felt sorry for that girl, the door would've been slammed the door right then and there. The thought _Hell no _came from the fact that the _last _time that damned certain town got into her life, it killed her Dad. And maybe it killed Mom, too. In a past life, the madness of that damned town always somehow reached out to kill off any sort of family she had to begin with. Then the damned craziness of the town reached out to kill her adopted father. The town was all about darkness and killing, disease and death. It was a place of darkness and madness. If the weird darkness didn't kill you there, it made other people kill people—hard to explain to newcomers...or even experienced people with that place. That town? Hah, she'd rather slit both her own wrists and drown her head in the resulting bowl of blood.

Whatever it was about that dark-haired girl in tight jeans and tighter sweater, it kept Heather from slamming the door and such… There was a lost and forlorn sort of feeling from the girl. Through the door-crack, Heather looked into that girl's dark eyes and saw twin pools of darkened misery. And from the way the girl stuttered with some kind of fear and worry, it only made Heather want to reach out even more to help. Maybe the dark-haired girl had nowhere else to go for help? After all, why else would she come to a gritty old apartment building to ask for help from a stranger?

_Screw it, _came the thought. She pushed the door closed, quickly undid the security chains, then opened the door. Now Heather had a more-full view of the dark-haired girl who was a head taller. But wasn't everybody taller? "Um... Th-thank you. May I come in?"

_What're you waiting for, an invitation engraved into a bronze plate? _"Sure, come on in," said Heather. She even gestured the way in. "Yes, I'm giving you permission to enter." _The place is a mess. _"The kitchen's fine."

To this, the dark-haired girl nodded. She walked as so her thin arms barely touched Heather, close enough to make for a quick but chilly breeze. The apartment's weak air-conditioning made things cool against the warm summer night. Yet the chill caused by the girl's passing made Heather shiver. There was another brush of dizziness like the one she had earlier.

"Oh, and you can..." began Heather. "You can..." But then she saw that the dark-haired girl was already walking towards the dinner table next to the kitchen area. It was right next to where Heather herself was sitting minutes ago. Now they could talk with great ease. But how'd she do that, walk to the right place without being told? Whenever a person walked into a new place, the thing to do was ask about. How was this girl so sure about herself in this apartment?

There was no sound when the taller girl walked across the short expanse of tiles to the table next to the kitchenette—careful, mincing footsteps. And when the dark-haired girl came to the table, she just stood there and looked uncomfortably around. It was as if she was too embarrassed to sit down herself. "Umm… What I have to tell you is, uh-h-h… You have to be careful! Some people... They're really mean."

Heather walked around to the table, now standing opposite the girl. "What do you mean? Could you be a little more specific than that? Like, if you came here to talk in puzzles, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Now you said Silent Hill, so I'm already expecting some kinda trouble." She tilted her head to the left. "I don't even know your name…"

"M-my name's…Angela," said the dark-haired girl in jeans and tight sweater. "I… I was staying some place and…then things started going wrong. It's h-hard to sleep when things start going so-o-o wrong. Now I'm _so_-_o-o_ tired…."

To this, Heather shook her head and crossed her arms across her abdomen. "Angela, is it? I know you're sort of nervous and all. But could you please tell me why you're here? Like, I can't help you if you're just gonna beating around the bush. You said a _certain town._"

"Well, uh-h-h..." began Angela. _Wink-flicker! _The apartment lights flickered. Heather saw Angela open her mouth. "Uh-h-h… If I told you like that, I c-c-could be in a _lot _of trouble." _Flickety blink-blink! _"They might get me."

There went the apartment lights again. _Damned old wires, _thought Heather. _Has the apartment super been slacking again? _Now she was getting doubly annoyed. She uncrossed her arms, put hands atop the table. "Okay, Angela… Let's try this one more time. What kind of _they _are you talking about? Let me know as so I can _maybe_ figure out what to do. Maybe I can help, maybe not. I don't particularly want to deal with any more kind of trouble myself. Those guys already made things screwy enough." She then thought, _And maybe I'd better be on the next bus going out of state: new name, new place, and a new me._

"I think…" began Angela. _Flick-flicker, _went the lights. Suddenly, the dark-haired girl with the sharp-featured face leaned forward. Her voice became a scream. "_You can't run, Alyssa!_ No matter where you go, we will find you! You can die and come back, but we _will always find you again and again!_"

_What…! _Now it was Heather's turn to become nervous, extremely so. "Whoa, _hey! _What's going on?" _Flicker-blinkety! _The apartment lights were doing that thing again. Now it was _getting hard to see. It was like Heather's eyes were messing up… Then came…_the sound of how-w-w-ling outside the sliding doors that led to the fire escape. Something was happening.

Flick-flicker-r-r, went the lights. "_Ae-e-ei-i-igh…!_" came the scream from Angela's mouth, her mouth open. The girl's dark eyes were open, mouth open, they were like three holes of darkness. Heather, holding her ringing ears shut, saw Angela begin to move. But she was moving without walking and seemed to become taller. No, that wasn't it

Angela came around the table. It was movement without using her legs. That would be because Angela was now floating. She was now floating right around the table and over to Heather, who was now staggering back and clutching her head. Heather's head felt as if it was _hurting like Hell. Her vision began to blur as the dizziness overcame her. Flick-flicker, went the lights. _

_This was a mistake, a damned mistake. That was what Heather was thinking as the floating being that called itself Angela floated even closer. And as the Angela entity floated closer, Heather began to feel even sicker and worse. It was as if some kind of sinister radiation was filling this place and trying…to fill her head. Her brain felt as if it was being pressurized inside of her skull! Then she couldn't take it anymore. _

"_A-a-h-h-h…!_" _screamed_ _Heather in expelling all the air out of her lungs, also losing the last of her strength. She staggered, collapsed to fall onto her back. Doing so, she barely noticed hitting her head on the floor. Now she was looking up towards the ceiling as the lights dimmed. Or was that her vision? Either way, it was like the light was being mottled over with muddy and bloody redness. The Angela-thing floated down towards her as she lost consciousness…_

…

_Heather…_sat up at the table. She sucked in an extremely weak breath and found it hard to breathe. Her body was numb all over. When she tried to stand up, it nearly resulted in her falling to the floor. _I feel like crap… My head's spinning like a bottle of bad booze. What's wrong with me? I'm too young for a heart attack or stroke…_

But if that was not true, then why did she feel like her chest was being crushed. And why was it so damned hard for her to _breathe? _There were cases in which even youngsters suffered from maladies presumably allocate for those of the elderly sort. Teenagers tell each other to "drop dead," in jest. Yet that sometimes is the literal truth. Given all the hundreds of thousands of preservatives in factory-packaged foods, think of at least the few hundred chemicals that are not safe. Then mix that with whatever the Hell could be in the drinking water. Indeed, this town's food and water could make for a feast of doom. Maybe her body was reacting to any set of chemicals in the food or water, chemicals with complicated scientific names long enough to take up a few pages of telephone books. Whatever it was, Heather just knew that _something _was wrong with her. She tried to get up from the chair.

And she instantly stumbled onto the floor. Her legs felt so weak, her body feeling as if freezing and burning at the same time inside… Damn, it would a sucky way to go—dropping dead of a heart attack or something at the age of nineteen. And she didn't even have a girlfriend now! She was going to _die _single and alone in this apartment because something was wrong with her after that nightmare.

If she couldn't stand up, she'd _crawl, _damn it! So crawl she did. Luckily she was wearing jeans-pants that let her slide herself along the tiled floor and along the hard carpeting. She wasn't getting any better. And maybe, she was making things worse by doing this. But there was no one else around to help a maybe-dying girl. _What the Hell, _she bitterly thought. _I'm not even twenty years old! I'm too damned young for a heart attack!_

She somehow, eventually, successfully crawled her way over to the telephone. Sitting sideways, Heather reached up and pulled the phone to the floor with her. Then what? Say that she called. Also, say that the ambulance people took her to the hospital. They would ask her for insurance. Hell, she _barely _had medical insurance. And the closest thing she had to a steady doctor was the health clinic up-town. Besides, when they asked her what happened, what would she say? Would she say that a radioactive _ghost _from a disappeared town attacked her? They would then lock her up in the crazy ward.

Being locked in a hospital was the _last _thing Heather wanted. Body and brain full of dizziness, Heather slowly lowered the telephone handset back to its cradle. Then she laid herself down next to the telephone as the semi-numbness and pain continued to agonize her. It was getting a _little _better as she laid down. Still, she was hurting.

Then the pain began to go away. It was fading… Yet there was that feeling of everything going wrong now. She knows that she saw one of _them _on the bus home from work. Now one of _them _came to her house. _Please… Please… Not again… _A tear slid from her right eye, down her right cheek. _Not again in this life..._


	3. Chapter 3

Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead

by Elliot Bowers

"Infinitely Late at Night"

Music by HIM

Chapter 3—The Mask

1.

Lights glaring ahead, this vehicle zoomed through the darkness. The lights made for the only illumination, twin blazing sources of brightness. There was no daylight and had not been for a long time. The way this vehicle was zooming, it was moving as if in fear of something in pursuit. The radio played something.

…_Don't worry about me_

_I'll be alright!_

_It's just infinitely _

…_late at night_

There must have been light at some point in this landscape. As there was plant-life growing to the left and right of this darkened highway-road, they must have had some source of light with which to live and grow. That was not now, and seemingly not ever. Darkness dominates the land…

_Now it's dark, _thought the operator of the vehicle as he drove this vehicle along the straight night-darkened highway. Left and right of the road was almost nothing but vast gloom-shrouded plains of grass, a cloud-coated sky that glowed faintly with moonlight above. He kept driving straight with little but the sound of the radio for company. This middle-aged man wasn't really paying attention to what was playing on the radio—just keeping his eyes ahead, his mind on the case.

Right now, Douglas Carter—private detective—was on this interstate highway going north. The highway stretched long enough that it went beyond Oregon. Not that he was actually going to Oregon, but the town he was headed for was pretty darned close. Driving this interstate was so boring and prolonged a task that a person could actually end up in the next state and not notice the difference—except for maybe the green route-signs above: poorly illuminated green-metal signs mounted up high.

But those signs were almost forever behind there. And it was part of forever before one would ever see such highway route-signs again. There were also almost no buildings out here--save a few abandoned industrial facilities he passed some ways back. There were not even other vehicles on this road to break monotony. Played the radio:

…Infinitely late at night!

_Is this a black-out?_

…_Or am I losing my sight?_

_It should have been noon_ _out_

…_The sun should be bright!_

Driving this prolonged highway was much like driving through some kind of cosmically questionable void where there was nothing but road ahead and cloud-shrouded night sky above, twin beams of headlights shining ahead like dual eyes…and that darkness ahead. There was nothing but more road and more of the same, the driving going on and on with the roadway going off into a dark horizon… The malaise brought Douglas into a sort of semi-hypnosis that let his mind drift through some of the basic facts of this case—something he'd been thinking about during this ride, thinking of that among other things.

This was an especially simple case. A town's priceless artifact had gone missing. It could not have been misplaced as there was security around it. Someone stole it. Now the detective had to find out who or what stole it.

By _priceless, _the lawyer representing the town's interest said that _the _artifact could not have a reasonable price. But everything had some kind of price. Even if it was just a simple number in a book, everything has some kind of monetary value—even people. Money makes the world go 'round and 'round.

The detective made some telephone calls out to the nearest public university. It was summer, and things were especially slow there. So the few professors of that school's archeology department were glad to answer questions. They even set up an impromptu conference-call setup: multiple professors in a college office fielding questions by way of telephone speaker and microphone.

According to the archaeologists, the artifact-in-question had an appraise value _well_ beyond six hundred-million dollars if it was ever brought to auction. It was because the artifact was in nearly flawless condition despite three millennia of existence. And yes, that would be _well beyond _the figure of six hundred-million dollars. He asked those professors how and why the artifact could be worth so much.

_Its existence flies directly in the face of perceptions regarding pre-historic North America, _the professors said. _The artifact is the only one of its kind in existence. There is almost no historical context within which it exists. The society that created it seems to have vanished. _

The artifact was a silvery animal-mask of high polished metal. Its upper section of the mask was shaped like a well-defined muscular forehead, two chrome-like hemispheres fitting over the eyes, while the lower section of it was skeletal—bared metal teeth. Most distinctive were the solid metal ears that jutted above the forehead. So say the university archeologists, the polished metal mask is representative of a pre-historic rabbit-human deity: a deity of strength, fertility and wisdom, the deity being a hybrid…

_A rabbit?_ _More like a monster, _thought Douglas as he remembered the photos of the thing. _What kind of rabbit has a muscular forehead and a skeletal mouth? That would make it the Reaper, wouldn't it? _

Well, okay… So the profs said it was the deity of a rabbit-human hybrid, so that was what the mask must represent—much as a child or abstract artist will draw a claw-fingered, bulbous-limbed figure and title it "nurse." Since they spent half their lives studying such things, they must be right. He read those descriptions of the artifact before seeing the plethora of official town photos of the thing. All the same, it looked an awful lot like a monster. And he knew monsters: Twice in his line of work did he see have to see them.

Both those times involved dealings with the defunct town of Silent Hill. He once told Heather that it was one _screw-w-wed-up town. _Douglas wasn't the only one with a negative opinion of that place. _G-g-gives me the ch-ch-chills, _said somebody to him once—a refugee from that town. Trouble was, nobody ever bothered to move back to _that _town even after the "pollution" problems there were allegedly dealt with.

About the guy who said _ch-ch-chills_… He went back to Silent Hill on regular visits. They found his burned-up corpse not too much later after a certain girl and a certain private detective took to final dealings with that landscape, that place—that _screw-w-wed-up town._

Just as he was driving along this highway, problems of that town went on the road. There were rumors of similar problems in other towns, minor outbreaks of problems in other places. In one case, almost an entire apartment complex full of people went missing—the people just…gone. It was as if they were swallowed up by another world. The building's superintendent disappeared too. A little investigation and it so turns out that the superintendent had a son and daughter-in-law who disappeared in—_where else_—Silent Hill… _G-g-gives me the ch-ch-chills…_

_You're God-damned right it does, _thought Douglas. Now the idea of that creepy hybrid human-rabbit mask of polished metal was giving him the same kind of _ch-ch-chills. _A priceless artifact, a town's treasure was dedicated to some kind of pre-historic human-rabbit god. He thought he heard _enough _about town-based religions and thought he wouldn't do any jobs any more for _anything _even vaguely smacking of religions and cults and towns with hints of creepy doings!

But these were _nice _people, the ones from which he took this case. And these days he never turned down a case. Now here he was, on the road, on the hunt for something that was almost worshipped by a town—worshipped to a tune above six hundred-million dollars or higher. Well okay, so the artifact wasn't worshipped. It was just a precious museum piece.

Something wasn't right about this business, though. For one, how could it just up and go missing from an alloy vault in the basement of Owl Creek's city hall? Douglas suspected an inside job, but all the security personnel are thoroughly searched before leaving the vault in the town hall. Then they had the metal detectors: one at the vault's entrance, one in the hall, one at the building's exit. "_Hsst!_" exclaimed the radio. He fiddled with the knob.

There should have been no way the thing went missing. It was it noted that security personnel are required to have their vehicles thoroughly clean for end-of-shift inspection. And there was more security than that—if possible. Besides, no one would want to walk out wit the creepy thing: _nobody _wanted the thing. _It looks like death_, they said. Besides, what the Hell kind of mask is over ten thousand years old? "_Bzzt_… _The number is prophetic, isn't it?_"

He glanced down again at the glowing readout of the car-radio, this time slowly twisting the knob slightly to the left. "_Meanwhile, the police and their six-legged… Bzzt… Hisst!" _The car radio began making insane static noises. _What? _If there was anything Douglas hated more than thing that didn't make sense, it was something that interrupted his thought processes. He glanced down at the radio just long enough to twist the tuning knob.

Yeah, the younger folks had car-radios with press-button tuning. Heather sometimes had something to say about the thing when riding with him. But he _liked_ his analog tuning: push-button computerized radio-tuning was too delicate. "_Fwis-s-s-sh… Hisst!_" complained the radio. "_According to Douglass' brain, a loss of blood-oils in the pipes led to violence among the red children who… Hiss, bzzt!"_

_Great, now the thing's tuned into some freaky radio station, _he angrily thought. Nope, it wasn't fixed yet. So he kept his right hand on the radio knob, twisting the knob while his left hand stayed on the steering wheel. Of course he was trying to keep both eyes on the road. This was the second-to-last place he would want to have an accident—out in the middle of nowhere, darkness all around. But the radio was just such a _damned _nuisance. Even if there seemed to be nothing on the road ahead, he still kept looking ahead. Something dark and hairy flew past this car and zoomed up to the sky above. "_Douglas, what do you know about alternate realities?_" asked a robotic voice.

"_Who said that!_" exclaimed Douglas. The clarity of the voice nearly made Douglas twist the wheel and lose control of this vehicle. It was like there was suddenly _somebody _in the car with him. There was no response to his particular question save the hissing sound of the radio—and what a _hissing _noise it was, some squealing and insane sounds mixed in it.

_What the _Hell _was that! _There was no one else in this car…. _Someone _was just here in this car with him. They said something to him and went away. It was some kind of screwy question. What was it again? He thought it said something about realities—more than one reality.

Nobody else was around, though. There was no way somebody could have stepped into a vehicle going seventy miles-per-hour without opening the doors, asking, then opening the door again. Then again, there was no way anybody could move fast enough to unlock the doors and get in here. It could've been the radio—as piss-static bad as it was now. Or it could've been a ghost. _G-g-gives me the ch-ch-chills… _

_Cut that out, _he thought to himself. It must have been the radio's reception kicking in well enough to make the stereo-FM function sound more realistic—even just for a secon. A decisive twist of the radio's volume knob, and Douglass _clicked _it off. Now there was no more of that hiss-buzzing noise filling this vehicle. Damned thing was getting irritating, probably busted when he hit a bump in the road sixty-three miles back or something. That could've jostled some wiring.

Hell, maybe it was the radioactive wastes buried somewhere around here, making for interference. Driving along this night-darkened highway, he _did _see some particularly interesting signs at the side of the road with the word _Danger _on them. One of them was something he hadn't really seen since the Cold-War nuke scares of a few years back. It was a sign with a symbol that had three colored triangles arranged inside a circle. That would be the symbol for _radiation_. _Damned nuke wastes are gonna make some pretty interesting animals some day, _he thought. Maybe it made for that great big hairy flying thing.

Come to think of it, it _was _getting to be pretty quiet and lonely in this car. There was just the sound of the tires humming along the as this vehicle continued along. It was an hour yet before he made it to the Town of Owl Creek, anyway. _Click! _Douglas turned on the radio and slowly turning up the volume. It almost immediately made for that sound of noise filling this car. He turned it low enough as so it wasn't too bothersome before again trying to fine-tune the thing's reception. Again came his right hand in adjusting the radio knob's tuning dial…

_Forget it. I'm not gonna muck around with the thing, _he thought. That thought left him to leave the radio at the same static-ridden station it was now. It wasn't the usual kind of radio noise and miscellaneous sounds. There were _crinklings_ and _clankings_ in the sounds of the noise… But there was something behind the noise. It was like something was trying to get through, or it was like something designed to scare a middle-aged to older detective. His mind was soon wandering some amongst the other thoughts, thoughts. All the sme, he was certainly getting there. He also had some cinnamon oatmeal cookies to eat too…

Why he thought of that, he did not know. It ought to be that he should maybe think more of carrots than cookies. What if he laid out a trail of carrots, cartoon-rabbit style—right into the Owl Creek Police Station. After all, a guy in a rabbit mask could maybe take on a taste for that vegetable to go with his love of skeletal pre-historic masks dedicated to human-rabbit hybrid gods. That in mind, Douglass drove on along this road through the darkness of night—darkness from the universe.

…

2.

…

An hour before sunrise, Douglas parked this car in a motel parking lot that was just beyond the destination-town's border. The town of Owl Creek was a mere six miles beyond here. But the man had been driving all night, awake all night on the road. He couldn't help _but _be awake after a few moments of not-so-normal sorts. He opened up the car-side door and stood up, pocketing the car keys in his slacks' right pocket. The trenchcoat he had on kept off the immediate chill of the pre-morning darkness. Oh yes, this was definitely a more northern climate—this far up-state.

He began walking for the motel office. At the daily rate he was being paid by his current client, he could actually afford a day's rest at a luxury hotel. That would be nice…if there were any such hotels hereabouts—just this motel on the side of the highway. Still on his mind was some worry about how things were going. Things like what happened last night shouldn't happen anymore. Things like that just _shouldn't._ Douglas entered the check-in office.

Inside, he found it to be so much like many other motels used before. There was the same kind of carpeting, hard dark-maroon carpeting met the feet on walking in. There was a waist-high check-in counter of somewhat worn wood-colored Formica. The wood paneling on the rectangular walls was of a lighter color, _always _wood paneling. Maybe some of the features had different colors from other motels. Maybe the front-desk clerk was there or in the back room. Almost every motel he had been in had the same look and same setup. These places must all have the same interior decorators and same architects… Or they were not-so-overtly all held in common by the same corporation.

This time, the front-desk clerk was not out front. _Bin-n-ng! _He tapped the bell. Out of the door came a lean-jawed sort of fortyish man in buttoned blue shirt and dark vest worn over, beige slacks and red leather shoes to complete the outfit. "Good morning, sir," he said. "Would you like a room?"

_A room…_ Just then, Douglas wondered what would happen if he said, _No, I stepped in just to buy cinnamon. Of course I want a room! Why _else _would I enter a motel's check-in desk? _Hmmph, some of Heather's attitude must be rubbing off on him—having lived with the girl for so long. "Yes, please. I'm just dropping for a stopover, really. Just for the morning—five hours."

"That'll be seventy," said the clerk. "And how are you paying, sir?" Douglas gave the money in travelers' checks. "Thank you." The clerk turned to get a key. "Room 6 should be to your liking… By the way, sir, may I inquire about your destination?"

Douglas decided to answer. Talking to random locals was sometimes a way to get extra information. "Sure, you can ask. I'm going to Owl Creek on business. Why, is there a big event? Something happen?"

"Not exactly," answered the clerk. He shrugged. "When you said _on business, _it was somewhat against the usual. Owl Creek is a really big destination for retired vacationers at certain times of the year. It is getting close to being one of those certain times. Oh-h-h, people come from _all_ kinds of places to go there."

"Really?" asked Douglas. "You know, I thought the town's main business was chemical refining. They've got a big chemical plant set, a good old manufacturing town. Thought that was the main draw, talking about jobs."

"Ah, _chemicals,_" said the clerk before putting both hands in pockets. "Well! Enjoy your stay, sir. This desk is always open if something comes up. Our rooms lack satellite television because of the impossible reception, but there is basic cable…" He nodded.

"Thanks," said Douglas. _You haven't said anything important, but thanks all the same. _In just seconds, that clerk went from vague curiosity to a quick-and-businesslike manner. He was hoping to get something out of the clerk, maybe a mention of the museum. He turned to open the motel door—opened and walked out.

Walking the motel parking lot in the pre-dawn darkness, this detective had a hint of realization. He stopped to think about it… Maybe he _did _get some kind of information out of the clerk. What the clerk _didn't _say was maybe just as important as what he _did _say. Owl Creek's museum had an entire floor dedicated to the religious beliefs of local Native American tribes. It would sounds pretty boring to most people these days. Heather liked reading up on the occult, but she largely avoided _religious stuff, _as she put it.

_Religious stuff, _it was. He went back to the car to get his suitcase. A few more steps brought him to Room 6. Odd thing, he so happened to be parked in front of the very same motel-room he was given by the clerk. _Click-click… _A dry metal sound and a surrendering of the doorknob indicated that the door was open. After going in and getting ready for a nap of several hours, he thought of that religious stuff. The missing artifact was the biggest part of the religious stuff at that museum—the reason why they hired him to find it. The trustees of that Owl Creek museum could have gone to the FBI, but then they wouldn't have given him a case.

…

Nine o'clock now, it was late morning when he left the motel to drive on into the town of Owl Creek. Everything was a great deal brighter with the pale-gold sunlight shining with a cool gleam. The town was really more a grown-up version of a residential community. There were still plenty forest area, the vast swaths of land occupied by pine-trees. As for human habitation, most all the structures here were houses. Even the downtown area had some office-buildings that resembled bigger houses converted to office-and-commercial space. Maybe the only exceptions were the police station and the museum.

This was the museum—a large, three-story circular building of red brick exterior. The entire structure had the look of a massive brick-lined cylinder. _Or a nuclear fallout shelter, _he thought. Driving along this main downtown street brought him into the vicinity of the huge place, a place that took up four city blocks' worth of space. He could see it even from miles away. First time he saw that building, he thought it to be weird.

And he still thought it looked weird. All the _other _buildings in this woodsy sort of town were square and looked _normal_. That and they were seldom that gigantic. It was as if the thing was the stump-bottom of a gigantic tower would only find in one of those fantasy movies from the 1980s or in a horror novel. There was this one writer who did books and books about stuff like that. What was the name of that author again?

Ah well, he had some questions to ask. Parking was around the back of the round building—so to speak. He turned right at the next intersection. This particular turn was a curve as well. _Well, well, well, _came the thought, _let's just see what the pleasant folks of this museum have to say about seasonal tourism. _At least the parking lot wasn't circular. Parking gave him the chance to stop driving so much and have another look at his notebook.

He flipped it open to the latest page. In addition to the previous notes about the artifact, he even had some clippings of articles folded and kept between pages. But his latest notes were regarding the things half-said by that motel clerk. They were hastily written from this morning.

First was written, _Said the clerk, tourism is heavy two times of year. It's museum-centered, religious? _Below that, he had earlier written, _Importance of these times of year? Why wasn't this mentioned by the museum people?_

The trustees of the museum were his official client. Though they generously gave him reams of articles and information on the missing metal artifact, missing from the museum, they didn't quite get into the draw of the place. _Time to grill the client, _he thought as he stepped out of his car. From there, it was a bit of a walk to the massive red building.

…

In the reception area, there was a sort of desk that was a bit like one at a grand hotel—set before the atrium. And like a grand hotel, there were security guards to the left and right. And _of course _the check-in desk was circular. Behind it sat an elderly man in dapper black-and-white formalwear. Came his gravelly and swampy voice. "_Goo-o-d _morning to you, sir," croaked the dapperly dressed elder. "_H-h-how_ may I be of assistance?"

_My God, the old guy sounds like he's half-dead. _Douglas opened his mouth just as he caught movement in the periphery of his right-side vision. And when he turned to look, it was a vision of amazing beauty.

The beautiful girl was confidently striding in this direction. There was this whole impression of slimness and elegance about her, a pale-skinned girl of straight dark hair and elegant face. Her outfit consisted of a pleated black skirt that and long-sleeved white blouse—the pleated skirt only going midway down her wonderful thighs to show quite a bit of her lean legs in stockings, her blouse fitting close to her upper body and being just this side of see-through. She had on small dark shoes to compliment the dark silk of skirt and silky dark hair--straight dark hair that fluttered like a banner of beauty from around and behind her delicate and round sort of face, large exotic dark eyes that were like round jewels. As this elegant beauty came closer, Douglas saw that her wonderful eyes weren't actually dark, but a sort of deep blue color.

Her being a _girl _was the only way he could put it, or a young woman barely out of her teens. And for some reason, Douglas thought, _Heather… _Why not? Heather was something like that, both petite and slender—as if she never fully grew up. Her height and slim, athletic physique let her pass for being a teenager for so long. It was just that those eyes made Douglas think of Heather; she had the same odd deep-blue sort of eyes. Except this girl-woman was about six feet in height—just Douglass' height.

She came within six steps and stood primly, feet together, delicate hands at her sides. When she spoke, her soft voice had the delicate staccato of an accent Douglass could not place. But even her _voice _was beautiful.

"We have ex-pec-ted you, Mis-ter. Douglas Carter," said the girl-woman. "A source informs us of your presence. Please be assured that we shall inform you to the best of our capabilities for the sake of returning what belongs to us." To that, the girl-woman tilted her head to the left, put on a smile that made Douglas' heart dance a little. "What aspect of the solstices do you wish to know of? They are reasons fully compatible with the secondary aspects of certain religious beliefs, we can assure you…"

_My God, _thought Douglas… _How long has it been since I left my wife? Marriage to this one wouldn't be so bad, not bad at all! _He had a quick imagined image of this girl-woman's elegant legs bare, her blouse off. She would be even more beautiful naked.

W_hat the _Hell _am I thinking? _He blinked. "Good morning to you too, ma'am. I had the idea of coming back for a little extra information that I may have missed the first time around. There were some things that you maybe didn't tell me about." He paused for some seconds when realization hit. "How'd you know what I'd ask?"

"_Ah-h-h_, _the power of gyromancy_…" sighed the beautiful girl-woman aloud. Douglas could smell the faint hint of apples and cinnamon, must be on her gentle breath. "We all have needs of questions bearing answers." She closed those beautiful eyes of hers as if in deep thought…then gently shook her head. There was the slightest rippling of delicate musculature in her elegant neck, the silk-whisper movement of her beautiful dark hair. Eyes opening again, her lips moved as she said, "Yet such a thing is not of immediate pertinence to those unfamiliar. You have been selected for the task because of your uncanny abilities at discovering the undiscovered. Yet your answers shall be preserved and respected.

"_Fi-irst_, let it be known that the two holidays of importance are key times of the year in terms of sunlight. The significance goes back over three thousand six hundred years. There is a day in which the day is longest. And there is a day in which…_darkness reigns the majority._" She stared with those dollishly large dark-blue eyes of hers.

"What do you mean by that?" _What does anything mean? _The man was finding himself drawn into the girl's deep blue eyes set in such a figure of dazzling human perfection. So slender, such smooth and beautiful looks…

Did the museum _really _let her skirt be that short, allowing the sight of such good legs? And though he kept his eyes firmly away from her blouse, the outline of the beautiful body beneath was a sight to behold. This girl was _exquisitely _beautiful—the sort of girl that ought to be on the cover of every fashion magazine. What the Hell was this raven-haired exotic beauty of a girl-woman doing tucked away in some back-water town, out in the middle of nowhere?

Back to the business at hand. It wasn't as if Douglas hadn't met beautiful women before. But this one was different, as if she wasn't even from this world. Never mind that! "I mean, there must be reasons why so many people come to this town to see the artifact," he asked.

"_Of course _there are," said the exquisitely beautiful girl-woman, her accent seeming as exotic as her sleek dark hair. "Still remains is how our _precious thing _is missing. You are so good at finding it. In fact, you may have already found it. Do you understand…?"

"Yes… Yes I do," said Douglas. He was…_having a hard time thinking clearly_ at the moment. _I will do my best to make sure that what you want is returned to you. _He said something like that. Or did he say _someone? _

_Well, he couldn't be sure of much other than this desire to serve the purpose of whatever this beautiful girl-woman had in mind. His mind was drifting. In the corner of his eyesight, the old man was now something only semi-human with lumpy green skin and what seemed like beige leather clothes. No… That leather looked a bit more like cured human skin—mental images of hunted humans skinned to make clothing for other-worldly creatures. _"What?" he exclaimed aloud.

The girl-woman smiled. "Thank you for your visit, Mr. Douglas Carter. Please come again should the need ever arise again," she said, that delicate voice of hers filling Douglas' ear s. And the voice kept resonating with Douglas—kept resonating within him. He was turning to walk back out, get into his car and look elsewhere for information on the artifact. As he left, the beautiful girl-woman in prim clothes stood there with her deep blue eyes seeming to glisten with an inner depth of secrets. Also true was the same of the thing that resembled an elderly man in black-and-white clothes.


	4. Chapter 4

_Silent Hill—The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 4 While You Slept

_Something with a grotesquely large head was running inside the apartment. It then made a run-and-jump for the apartment window…went through the windowglass. But it went through the window without breaking it, before flying upwards to the sky. It went back to wherever it came from. Heather forced herself to wake up to see if she could get a good look at the thing. But she was in the wrong place. The girl was actually in her bedroom. Where did that thing go, anyway?_

_She finally…_shook enough sleepiness to think clearly. Streetlights outside shone through her bedroom's window-curtains. She could feel the mattress beneath herself, the smooth cottony texture of the bedcovers on her skin—jumbles of bedcovers tangling her legs. She must have tossed and turned in bed last night, because her rumpled bed-covers barely covered her now. As she pulled the bedcovers over her, lying on her back, she thought of that vision. So how was she able to see a glass window? Or maybe she ought to ask herself what she just saw. _A dream, _thought the girl.

What time was it, anyway? There was no light of sunrise shining through her curtains. She turned her head to the right to look at the electronic alarm-clock on the dresser-drawer. _6:26_ said the time in glowing red letters. The alarm wasn't supposed to go off for another half-hour. _I'm already awake, so I may as well get up now_. She pulled off the bedcovers, sat up and yawned... arching her back and stretching her arms, her mouth open… There was a feeling of something dry on her face as she did so. _What the Hell?_

The girl climbed out of bed, worried something was wrong. She didn't even bother to put on her robe and just strode went naked through her darkened bedroom. The bathroom was right here anyway. _Click, _on came the bathroom lights in a flash of brightness.

There she stood and looked in the mirror—seeing herself to the tops of her shoulders. First noticeable was the pattern of dried blood on her own face. There were also bruises around the smudges. And something else wasn't right. _Like... What's going on here, _she thought. The girl leaned closer to the mirror, the smooth edge of the cold bathroom sink pressing into her bare abdomen—her reflected self in the mirror regarding her naked self in this bathroom.

First she saw the blood and the bruises. There were smudges of dried blood high up on the cheeks, right at the points of cheekbones—a contrast to her lightly tanned summertime complexion. Many of the smudges on her face were surrounded with bruises, or the blood smudges were over the bruises. One of the dark smudges was along the bridge of the nose... On the left and right sides of her forehead were two more spots of smudges—like points where a person would try to attach antennae. But that wasn't the worst part.

She looked into her own eyes in the reflection. At first she thought it was a trick of the light. But staring made it seem all the more real. It _was _real, the way she had changed. "_Whoa-a!_" she exclaimed, flinching away from her reflection and turning herself away.

She rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times before _slow-w-wly _straightening herself up to chance a look up into the mirror again. There was no flinching away this time. Her red eyes stared out at her from the reflection.

Her eyes had _definitely _changed to red. No, it wasn't the _red _color from having one's eyeballs dry up and stuff after a night of boozing it up. No, the colors of her irises were now the color of blood. They used to be a dark blue. Her eyes were now..._wrong_. _This is too weird... Like, this isn't happening. _She felt panic rising.

_Wait a sec, _thought the girl, calming down... She bent over the sink and began splashing some water onto her face to scrub away those patterned smudges of dried blood. She really scrubbed at the points on her face where there were marks. That done, the girl again looked at herself in the mirror and keeping eye-contact with her reflection. Of course her eyes were still this new color. Staring, it was like her own eyes didn't even _look_ _human_. _This isn't right at all. _She saw eyes like this in some of the animals at the pet-shop at the mall. The poor things were locked in their cages.

Whatever kind of animals they were, it was sort of hard for her to remember rtight now. She resumed scrubbing her face—looking up occasionally. Only eventually did she stop scrubbing her own face, looking up long enough to verify what she was doing. Namely was her trying to wash away the red color with water. Her fingertips scrubbed and scrubbed, water dribbling along her forearms, more water dripping down her neck to slide along her breasts and trickling down the firm flatness of her abdomen.

Even with the dried blood scrubbed away, two out-of-place features remained: that of the slight bruises at the prominent points of her face, and her eye-color. The bruises could be explained...somehow. Maybe she bumped her face or something against the head-board while sleeping in bed? But her eyes were just plain impossible. The girl never heard of somebody's _eyes _changing color.

_Bz-z-zt! _"..._Within the halo of a street-lamp!_" came the screaming. "_I turned my collar to the cold and damp! When my eyes were stabbed with the flash of a ne-e-eon light! And touched the sound of silence...!_"

It was like screaming and singing coming from her bedroom, coming from her dresser drawer. Heather looked worriedly around—her crimson-colored eyes seeking to focus on a source of the sound. It was the damned _alarm clock! _She just forgot to change the time.

"_People writing songs no one shares! No one there!_" screamed on the singing voice, musical instruments in the background Heather exclaimed something obscene, yet the sound of her voice was lost in the noise as she quickly strode back into her bedroom on bare feet, water dripping down the front of her body. She was then in front of the loud-and-raucious alarm-clock. Before touching the device, Heather began wriggling the fingers of her left hand in the air.

Well, touching an electrical appliance with bare wet hands—and part of her body wet with more water—wasn't exactly a brilliant idea. The electric alarm-clock was all plastic and reliable. It seemed friendly enough. But any five-dollar electrical appliance could kill a girl.

Heather imagined the headline: _Naked Body of Nineteen-Year-old Female Found Dead in Apartment. _It would begin with lascivious details, how she was laid out after being electrocuted to death... There was the thought of old smoky police detectives all over her bedroom and _looking _at her naked body. At least being electrocuted would make her skin turn a nasty color. And maybe it would be a while before they found… _Ugh. _

So the girl was sure that her hand was dry before touching the _loudly obnoxious electric alarm clock-radio_. "_The sound…of silence…_" A press of the plastic button, and the amplified sound of the song hissed into silence. There was no electrocution. "_Whew!_" exclaimed Heather. Well, she was already splashed with water. She may as well go shower now. She returned to the bathroom and turned on the water.

The time standing in the hot water was time enough for her to think about how she could get to work without weird looks. But how could that have happened at all? People's eyes just _don't change color. _Maybe it meant something? Maybe she ought to go to the health clinic and have her eyes checked out or something?

She showered for about forty minutes or so. It was hot water all the way—the hot water readily available because most all the other tenants didn't shower until later. Stepping out of the shower stall, she then toweled herself dry. She put the towel in the hamper, stepped into the bedroom. What to wear…?

She didn't bother to make for too much of a hassle: just another outfit of the same style. It was another one of her typical summertime outfits: jeans-shorts to expose her legs to air, and a tank-top sleeveless shirt that bared a bit of her flat abdomen. Thinking better of it, she then changed to full jeans-pants. It would be a little hotter, but it would be less skin for old police guys to stare at if they found her dead... Why was she still thinking about that?

It was another hour and-a-half before having to board the bus for work—plenty of time. She sat down in front of the vanity mirror—a place where she had a little drawer full of makeup and stuff, her hairbrush and items atop it. Brushing her hair gave her chance enough to regard her own newly odd eyecolor while grooming herself. And she was looking into her newly blood-colored eyes and getting a bit more nervous while doing so. Yeah... A pair of sunglasses would do nicely to cover up her eyes and the weird bruises. Colored contacts would be better, but she didn't have any. Those things could be expensive, too—having to always buy pairs.

Well, maybe the condition was temporary. At least her eyes hadn't gone all blurry while she slept. She could still see just fine. But again... What _was _wrong with her eyes? This… This couldn't be possible. As she stared into the mirror, brushing her hair, she was looking at proof.

_What does this all mean? The smudge-marks, that weird guy… _A glance in the mirror and she thought, _My eyes must have changed for some reason. It's not like it happened out of random weirdness. _And she kept brushing her hair, thinking on things. Or maybe she read something about this before? There was this one book…

There was still plenty of time before work. A nightmare got her up early and was partially to blame for that. _Nothing like a glimpse of Hell to get the blood goin'bright-and-early in the morning, _thought the girl, _especially if the Hell is your own. _Her ruby-colored eyes regarded herself in the mirror… Maybe it was the mirror?

Heather stood up and stepped around to the side of the mirror. _Hmm…_ _What if I had a peek behind here?_ She slightly tipped the thing away from the wall to get a look behind it. There wasn't anything weird about the mirror, just a plain ol' mirror.

Putting her hairbrush on the bureau, she then went back to her bathroom and looked into the mirror there. Her own reflection still had that eye-color. Heather then leaned forward and stared into her eyes. She tried blinking hard for a few seconds and opening her eyes again. There was no change. Then she tried rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands and even seeing little sparkles from maybe pressing too hard… Nope, her eyes were still the color of something weird.

There was one more chance. She still refused to believe that her eyes were now some kind of mutant-color. They were fine when she went to bed last night! Yeah, it had to be the mirror… So the girl went to her second dresser-drawer—the one with her writing high-stool and things. Was it in here? Nope, so she opened up the second dresser-drawer…found it. It was an instant camera she had since a while… Funny thing, she didn't remember where she got it.

Ah well, where she got the thing couldn't be too important if she didn't remember just now. It, the camera, was sort of old and clunky, but it always worked. She turned it around and raised it up with both hands, holding the thing at arms' length. It took an effort to force herself _not _to blink. _Click, it was a flash of light! _

_Jeez, that's annoying! _It also took an effort to keep herself from dropping the camera when the flash hit. The easy way out would've been for her to turn off the flash in the first place. But this bedroom's lights were only so bright, and maybe the lack of lighting wouldn't bring out the freaky occult-style crimson-color of her eyes…

Maybe she ought to lay off the occult books for a while? What if reading about demons, alternate realities and such things made this happen? Anyway, the square picture already slid out of the camera. Heather snapped it out of the camera's exit-slot and shook it a little, looked at the resulting picture. "_I should've known_," she mumbled as the picture clarified. Darned instant cameras always took tong lon to fade in…

The photograph showed herself—of course—with both her arms outstretched and holding the camera. Her face was serious, a slight pout on her face. More serious was the fact that her eyes were still this new color. There was also a hint of something behind her in the photograph.

Whatever it was, it was hard for Heather to tell at first. There was this shadow over her right shoulder. But it wasn't just that. It was as if the shadow in the picture was standing on its own. There was definitely something there. She sat down at the second dresser-drawer and pulled it open, where her writing and crafts materials were, along with her casual reading books. Though something gave her the chills. Among the miscellaneous objects were two kinds of magnifying glasses.

She used the smaller magnifying glass—and went cold at the sight of something in this photograph. Somebody else had been in this room when she took this picture of herself. It, the intruder, was wearing a dark robe or something. And the way it stood meant that the thing was posing somewhat aggressively. The shadowy part of the photograph covered everything, and Heather couldn't tell if it was a man or _something. _But there _was _something…

It was sort of hard to tell, but the shape standing behind her and a ways back—it was with back to the wall. And if she didn't know any better, she would've sworn the top of the shadow looked like…bunny ears. _Yeah, I've got an inter-dimensional mutant-demon in a bunny suit stalking me, _came the thought. _And it won't stop 'till it's convinced me to give it all the carrots I ever buy…or give it my soul…whichever is on sale this week_.

She brushed aside that thought. Maybe it was actually a trick of the light? Heather looked around this room. Nope, there wasn't anything else that could've made for that shadow. And she was also sure that nothing could have made for her eyes getting to be this way now. Speaking of which, she had to have some sunglasses lying around. If she walked around with eyes this color, people would probably think she was some kind of mutant freak.

…

2.

…

Dressed in her usual work-outfit of jeans and tank-top, her little purse worn over her left shoulder, her head of honey-blonde hair well-brushed, Heather stood at the bus-stop in the morning daylight. Not so usual about her outfit was the pair of sunglasses she had on. _I feel ridiculous with these things on, _she thought to herself. _They feel all big and clunky. _Wearing sunglasses, and the sunlight wasn't even bright yet. She used to wear these sunglasses when sunbathing on the apartment roof—the squared-off relaxation area. Well, she sunbathed up there when the air wasn't so bad due to the factory pollution. She was going to get back to a beach one of these weekends. Trouble was, she had to keep working weekends these days.

Well, the air was pretty bad this morning, anyway: no rooftop-sunbathing for anybody, work or not. A person could tell when the air would be pretty bad for the day sometimes by looking towards the sunrise. If the morning horizon was that deeper orange-red color, a person just knew that the smog was really up this morning, coming from the more industrialized area farther south. In this city, all of those cars and machines just kept churning away and burning up fuels, especially these days.

Heather read somewhere that horses couldn't be used anymore because the pollution killed them. Yeah, and the fuel is made from animals that died a million-million years ago and stuff. Burning the rotten fluid made from dead animals, that was what fossil-fuel vehicles did.

_Huh… And here we are, breathing the stuff, _thought the girl. A few cars drove by just now. One of them was a big red sports-car with a drive-train and exhaust system so loud and inefficient that she could _see_ the grayish smoke it left behind. Heather rolled her eyes though the gesture would be lost behind the dark lenses she had on. Really, what do boys see in those big, stupid cars, anyway? They're just material possessions. Then again, some girls Heather knew went for guys with cars like that. Something was watching her.

Heather kept herself from looking around. She had the ability to sense when there were malicious eyes on her. Right now she sensed an especially overpowering presence of something _watching _and _staring_. The girl stopped breathing and kept herself damned still. Heather didn't want to move now, not move at all. But _what _was looking at her? _What _was it?

There was something in the periphery of her right-side vision. Whatever it was, it was also standing on the sidewalk. It was _big. _And it _wasn't _shaped like a normal person. She didn't _want _to turn her head—fearing what she might see. But if she didn't see what the Hell it was, she wouldn't know how to deal with it if it moved towards her. So she turned her eyes to the right…could barely make out a haze.

Heather _quickly turned her head to the right! _And…she saw nothing but more city sidewalk. _There's nothing there, _she thought to herself. _Maybe my sense was wrong this time? _She frowned. _It usually isn't, though. _

Then came the familiar gurgle-roar sound of the bus' diesel engine. _About time! _She opened up and slipped her fingers into her purse, pulled out the money for the bus fare. The girl zipped closed the purse… _What was that all about, anyway? _When the bus pulled up, she looked up through dark-tinted sunglasses. The bus driver sat stiffly in the seat. He looked a bit chubbier this morning, but she said nothing. Nevertheless, she stepped up into the huge vehicle.

…

_Shwi-ink—clickety, _went the mechanical door-mechanism on the bus. That _clickety_ sounded a little funny. But that didn't matter: These old city busses were always with some kind of problem. _Lurch! _"Hery!" The bus just accelerated a little _too _quickly, nearly making her grab the nearest bus seat—which she sat down in.

When the bus was going at a decent speed, she mulled over _that _feeling again. Something was watching her again, something _not right_. What could that mean? Anyway, they'd be less likely to watch her now. The good thing about not being too tall was how the seats front and back went almost over her head.

There was that feeling again. "See her, see-e-e-e her!" yelled somebody. "The truth is right! Let's do it!"

"_What the Hell?_" she mumbled. _They let some screwy guy on the bus? _There were times when she felt a little nuts herself , but she didn't go off ranting like the top of her head was off and stuff. Trying to ignore, the guy, Heather looked at the window—and saw that the light of sunrise looked _really _wrong just about now. She lifted up her sunglasses to look through the tinted bus-windows. Even through the bus window-tinting, the light looked wrong. What was going on here?

"See her, _see her!_" taunted the nut-job a few rows up. He got up and moved a few seats closer... Heather saw that it was a skinny man dressed in dusty reddish clothes—a tee shirt and red pants. "_See her!_" _Swish! _That said, the man snatched off Heather's sunglasses. "_See her!_"

"_Hey! Give me back my glasses, you jerk!_" she yelled. If she couldn't get them back, that would be money that she had to spend—money that could be spent on other stuff she needed. "If you don't, I'll… _make you sorry!_"

"See her, _see her!_" screamed the seemingly-crazy skinny man. He pointed at Heather. More exactly, he was pointing in the direction of her eyes. Now he was shouting at the top of his lungs. Any louder, and maybe he would cough up his sprained vocal chords or something "_See…the…cinnamon!_"

Heather was again reminded of her altered eye-color. Still, she had to deal with this bastard.

"_Don't you mess with me!_" snarled Heather. Anger hazed her vision a diluted crimson color. Then it was as if…_things twisted a little. I hate you so much, _she thought.

"_A-a-a-augh-h-h!" screamed the man. Something was wrong. He was no longer in such a loud and energetic mood. Something was giving a headache. "I feel her hatred! She's the one!" he screamed. _

_Heather relented, but then…_she grabbed the hand with the sunglasses. More exactly, she grabbed them man's hand with her right hand and his wrist with her left hand. And she twisted. A crackling _twist _was all it took to confirm that the wrist was broken.

She heard the man _scream _in agony. Then the girl _kicked _her foot upwards and between legs. Such a maneuver wouldn't have been practical if she had been a skirt right now, glad she was wearing jeans-pants. Now she felt the satisfying impact of her sneakers-clad right foot sink into soft male genitalia in pants. Heather actually kicked so _hard _that the man actually _went _upward a foot above the bus-floor before collapsing to the floor. When he came back down, he collapsed to the bus floor—making squeaking and gasping sounds.

Now Heather was feeling that familiar and awesome strength of anger filling her body. Whenever she was angry, she could be a very strong girl for someone so petite and thin. The strength was radiating from within and making her feel as if six feet tall!

Now she didn't even try to hold back. She _kicked _the man while he was down. Something went _crunch. _And _that _felt good too. Now the girl then plucked her sunglasses from the newly crippled man's left hand. She was going to put them on when she saw that all the other people out of their seats. All of them were dressed in outfits a great deal like this guy's outfit. Meaning, they were all rolled as a clique. _Oh Hell… _Then she sensed someone move behind her. The girl quickly spun herself around—getting ready to really hurt somebody.

Something hard…_whacked her in the forehead. Suddenly, she didn't feel like fighting anymore—didn't even feel like standing up. Everything took on a splashing of florescent sparkles of pain. It was what everybody calls "seeing stars..." Not only that, she found it hard to even stand up. It was like everything was spinning… Now the people on this bus… started to look…wrong. It was as if their faces were turned the wrong way. Some of them looked as if their skin wasn't quite right, a few of them with patches of fur on their necks, or lumps growing out of their foreheads. And now some of them weren't reaching for her with hands. They were using their claws. Heather didn't even want those things to touch her. _

"_Get the Hell away!" screamed the girl, or tried screaming. But screaming only made herself feel dizzier. She swayed on her feet and fell down onto her butt, head feeling as if it was still swirling…or everything else was swirling. But she grabbed the seats for balance, put her legs under herself in a kneeling position before…_standing up again. Some of those claw-like hands made a grab for her, some of those hands having strangely written numbers carved onto them.

Obviously, these things weren't listening. A wave of _dizziness took her over for a moment before she…_was able to feel her balance again. The man-thing behind her was raising the short club he had to hit her again.

_Not this time, buddy! _Heather kicked the man in the knee, making for an awful _crunch _sound. _Jeez, these guys crumble pretty easy, _she thought. Then she took the short rod that he dropped. It looked like metal, but the thing actually had a warm plastic sort of feel to it. The end had a weird Ancient Egyptian symbol carved in it. And it was like there was some kind of humming glow deep within it. Heather didn't think she ever saw any kind of weapon like this before, if it existed on this world. Another…_wave of dizziness…_shook her.

_I've got a concussion or something, _thought the girl. _If I don't beat these guys first, I'm gonna faint. _ So she raised the billyclub-thing made of a strange material and gripped it. Hell, the thing made her feel stronger. And these freaks crumbled pretty easy if you hit 'em…

"_Eem_ _kroc!_" exclaimed one of the man-things at the head of the group, or something like that. It stood crouching on a bus-seat in getting ready to jump Heather. And Heather had no problem swinging the weird futuristic club-thing to _whack_ the creature on the head. It made for a sound of struck-meat as the man-thing fell backwards—shuddering as if he had been blasted by lighting.

The girl had dealt with distorted freaks before. Now she could deal with them again. Meaning, she had killed her fair share of things. So long as they were _things _and not people, they were easy to kill. Heather wasn't sure if she could kill a person. Dealing with creatures like this was a familiar situation all over again...except for the _headache that occasionally…_got to her. Something warm and wet suddenly dripped down from her nose as another swath of _dizziness spun her..._a bit.

_What? _She took one hand off the strange bludgeoning weapon, her left hand, to quickly wipe at her nose. A glance down revealed that it was blood. They hit her in the head. She was feeling _woozy…_every few seconds or so. Now she was bleeding through the nose and a bit through her ears. Oh yes, Heather knew what it meant. She read about it in one of Dad's mystery books.

It meant that someone hit her hard enough on the forehead that she was bleeding inside her head. And just maybe, some of the blood…was _seeping into her brain. It was why…_her eyesight blurred over…_too… _The distorted freaks facing her now must have sensed the extent of her injury because they were now…_approaching. _

"Get away!" screamed Heather, her…_head hurting. _The girl didn't know how long she had before she…_blacked out because of her head injury. _She then quickly raised the club, swung it downwards because the bus' aisle didn't make for room enough to swing horizontally. Good thing she was on the petite and thin side: It meant she had enough room to raise it high and smash it downwards without hitting the thing on the bus' ceiling…. _Crunch!_

It was a good hit, collapsing the chest of the closest man-thing dressed in odd clothes. Also true was how these deformed man-creatures were physically weak. That one collapsed to the floor of the bus—just like the others Heather smashed. _Hey yeah… I just might make it, _thought Heather. Then a particularly…_severe wave of dizziness blurred through her head. Everything was getting blurry, and she staggered backwards… _

The girl didn't exactly remember falling. But the next thing she knew, she was on her back and feeling the bus floor under her. She was feeling numb and sick, and the blow to her forehead was throbbing like Hell. She saw the man-things beginning to step closer. One of them grabbed her ankles, while another one sat atop her and grabbed her arms. _They're going to rape me_, came the awful thought. _Oh God no_…

Somehow another one of the man-things slithered over the seats to the right, leaving a coating of slime. It slid around and then climbed down to the bus-floor as so it was by her head. She had the vague feeling of her head tilted back with a gnarly claw-hand, arching her neck, exposing her throat. They opened her mouth and poured in some kind of liquid—closed her mouth.

She gagged on the awful liquid and snorted, blood spritzing from her nose. They were keeping Heather's mouth closed. It was either she choke to death or swallow. One of the things put its hands on her neck to massage her throat. Then, reflex-action decided for her: She swallowed. It made her shudder as the awful stuff slid down her throat, going deep into her body. And almost immediately, everything…_took on that dizziness again. Things began happening._

_There was suddenly a terrible increase of frightful light. It was a glow pouring in from all directions, all the bus' windows—an awful glow, a florescent glow. Something like an earthquake began to sh-sh-shake the bus floor! The bus lights flickered, then went off again. It was like a nuclear blast went off or something—like this bus was riding right through it. Then it faded into a bloody red glow as everything settled._

_Heather had the idea that this bus was now…somewhere else. She somehow had the idea that the view outside was one of crumbling buildings set in a grotesque, contaminated landscape. Maybe it was once a city out there, but it wasn't any more. The landscape, the sky, it was all now likely steeped in a deep crimson glow from a radioactive sunset. _

_It felt like what deadly radiation ought to feel like. There was this sick and wrong tingling feeling all over, along with the numbness—which was getting worse. All the freaks were screaming and giggling as if they were being hit with radiation as well. Heather closed her eyes and let the worst of the nausea pull her into unconsciousness. The girl knew that she might not wake up. _

_Dying wasn't so bad. It hurt maybe a little bit. If they stabbed her, it would probably have been a lot more painful. A hit to the head, a swallowing of something that must be drugs or poison, it was like falling asleep…except with a little dizziness. It wasn't as if she hadn't died before. But maybe reincarnation wasn't in the cards this time. _

_As Heather lay dying, she wondered about what would happen to her body. This bus was now somewhere else. By 'somewhere else,' it was likely not the world she knew. She let the last of her strength leave her, surrendering to the cold and numbness. Hello darkness, my old friend…_


	5. Chapter 5

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

"Black Market Baby"

Vocals and Lyrics by Tom Waits

Chapter 5—Welcome to Sunset Meadows

_The entity was coming. He was not here yet, but he would be. Sounds of machines started up, working now, metal machines all full of fire and with blood flowing through their pipes Something was happening. A radio in the darkness nearby hissed on—the wind-like hissing of static. A dark song was playing through the interference…._

_Said lid is off…_

…'_Cause way back off the road!_

_There's a ma-a-an with a lantern_

…_And he carries a soul…_

_That distant churning of machinery ratcheted upwards. The churning sounds of fiery engines of strange greasy metals began to increase. It took an effort before the creature was able to…fade into this reality. And as the figure did so, the radio began to hiss all the more louder. It was as if the radio was screaming now._

_As the voice on the radio screamed the lyrics, the figure…fully faded into existence. There he was, all six feet of him, the shape of the bunny suit no real consolation for the dark and inhumanly stiff way of standing. And it wore the mask. The mask, the polished metal head-piece, was still with its skeletal mouth and chromed eyepieces staring. But…standing so still, it was as if the entity was listening to the lyrics playing on the radio… _

_Coal stove and a bed!_

_Sinner that I am…_

_Said drove a _camel _through a _needle!

_In this sinking board-walk town!_

_The churning sounds began to weaken. Soon enough, there was just the mechanical thrumming taking over. It faded off into the distance—leaving behind it thick sounds of bubbling liquid through pipes. Even that sound of flowing blood went off to leave blessed quiet._ _It was much like the sound of a heavy piece of machinery going off and away to unknown destinations. This left the girl to fade…_into bed. And the static-troubled radio sang on…

_There's no prayer like desire!_

_There's amnesia in her kiss!_

_She's a swan in a pistol_

_And she'll fallow you like this_

To that, the entity in the bunny suit nodded. Then it turned to fade away as the singer and a background singer chanted something. It was something that was maybe important.

She's my black-market baby!

…_She's my baby!_

She's my black-market baby!

…_She's my baby!_

She's a diamond…that wants to stay coal…

Eventually, the radio static hissing overwhelmed the singing—before it turned off. This made for there merely being the sound of a three-bladed fan above. It slowly whirred and whirled and went around, going around, turning itself in lazy circles. With the sound of moving air, the fan-blades had behind it the slight sound of the electric motor that moved the blades that made it go around and around and around….

"_M-m-mmmf…_" murmured the girl as she struggled for wakefulness. _Oh wow, _she thought. _Like, I must've gotten really plastered last night. Wine, gin… Nah, I can't afford much of the heavy stuff these days. Hell, what _was _I drinking? _ _What was I thinking? _

Being under-aged never really stopped her from having a little to drink sometimes, just as she smoked nicotine before she reached eighteen. So she had a little tipple every so often, but she seldom got _wasted! _Drinking or not, Heather always had to make sure that she was in decent enough condition to get to work the next day. Apparently, if she didn't even going to sleep the previous night, it must have been one _Hell _of a night—one that left her head spinning. She squirmed a little, then laid still. _This isn't my bed._

It was not, indeed! For one thing, the mattress was too damned soft for it to be her bed. Too-soft mattresses always made her feel funny whenever she woke up funny. Her real mattress was just right for herself. This _wasn't _her mattress. The bedcovers were wrong because they felt slightly thicker and had a slight lemony smell to it. _Lemony?_ She liked her bedcovers smelling like flowers, lilacs and such. These lemony smelling bedcovers were _not _her bedcovers. And for another thing, she also knew that this was not her bed because there was somebody else in it with her.

Nope, this wasn't her bed at all. _Where the _Hell _am I? And who the _Hell _is this? _Heather opened her eyes to gloomy sunrise light glowing into this bedroom--shining through curtains. She turned herself to look at the head of fluffy honey-blonde hair. That so happened to also be _her _hairstyle. A very careful tentative touch beneath the covers revealed that it was another girl. She slept with a stranger and didn't remember? "_Whoa!_"

This made her throw off the bed covers and _jump _herself off of the mattress. With almost inhuman speed, she was then on her feet and standing on the right side of the bed. Whatever was going to happen next, she would be ready.

The other girl did the same, doing a quick roll sideways to bring her to the other side of the bed. She crouched in expecting an attack. When none came, she slowly stood up and prepared for trouble—made eye-contact.

Heather regarded the other girl. She looked to be about the same height—barely five feet tall, a slender and vaguely athletic sort of dancer's body. Heather also thought the other girl had the same sort of slightly suntanned complexion, but there wasn't enough light to be sure. In fact, the girl standing on the other side looked an awful lot like she did. _Who is this?_

"Who are you!" demanded the girl on the right side. "And why do you look so much like me, hairstyle and all? What are you, some kind of _stalker?_ I don't wanna have to scream and call the cops and stuff. But if you don't start giving me some answers, that's what I have to do. Did you drug me?"

"So you're asking _me_ who _I _am?" asked the girl on the left side of the bed, incredulous and with fingers to her sternum—indicating herself. "Like, _I'm_ the one who feels like I've been drugged. So that's it? You just find girls, slip a date-rape drug into their drinks and drive them over to your place as so you can enjoy their bodies while they sleep? You sick bitch! And don't think that dressing me up again makes it okay." She moved her hands to jeans-clad hips. "Well, you don't look like you need drugs to get people into bed with you, but that what it seems like you did." _And I'll have a hard time believing whatever you say._

"Oh, _what-ever!_" exclaimed the girl on the right side of the bed—giving a frustrated flap of her lean arms, hands coming back to rest lightly on the sides of her thighs. "Like, my head's hurting too—like the worst hangover ever. And I didn't smell booze and stuff on _you _when you were breathing in bed with me. So you're not the one drugged!" She audibly exhaled, as if to vent some anger. "Look, let's start with names. Then maybe you can help me figure this stupid mess out. I'm Heather…. Heather Mason. Now what's your name?" _And, like, no way am I gonna take a fake answer._

"_Uh-uh!_ Like, no way is that your real name!" responded Heather. "You copy my looks, and now you're trying to steal my name too! If you wanna steal the name 'Heather,' it's taken already. You must've looked around in my purse and stuff, probably putting on makeup and doing your hair like mine… I bet you know a lot about drugs, probably taking drugs to get your body-type to be like mine, too… " _This_ _girl is really screwy, _thought Heather.

"Do you _know _how screwy that sounds?" countered the girl on the right side of the bed. "Like, _hello!_ I'm the one who woke up in bed with you. This is not my place. This is probably your place. So tell me where the…" Something made her pause. "Wait a sec. Do you know what telephone number I'm going to call…right now?" _I'm gonna call home, hope Douglass is maybe there, _she thought.

"You're gonna call the apartment number," confidently answered the girl on the left side. "But that was what I was going to do. Okay, change of plans. Let's try something else. Try thinking of another place to call." _And please don't say you're gonna call the church._

"I _was _gonna call Church, then," said the girl on the right. "But I'm guessing you…" _had the same thing in mind. _She put on skeptical and serious-faced sort of look. _Next you're gonna tell me that you can read my mind, too. Like I'm supposed to believe that._

_Jeez! Like, you're so-o-o predictable! I can hear you inside my head and stuff--like peekin' right into your mind… _"Wait… Like, hold on a sec," said Heather on the left, putting up her hands in a _hold on _sort of gesture. "I'm guessing a number. You get it, maybe I'll start believing what's going on here." _The number 'eighteen' ought to be about right._

"Please don't tell me you're thinking the number 'eighteen,'" said the other naked girl. "Six times three. You made me angry. Now you're freaking me out!" _And things are gonna have to start making sense soon. _

_They don't_ _make sense to me, either, _thought back Heather on the right. She saw the other girl's eyes go wide with recognition. "Did you just hear that?" _Can you hear what I'm thinking…right now?_

_I'm hearing you right now, _answered the girl on the left—without opening her mouth. _I don't how you're doing it. No, I don't know how we're _both _doing it. But this has to make sense somehow. _"Okay, maybe something really loony is going on here… But I'll cooperate with you if it means you'll give me some answers." _I'd give you answers too, if I had any. _

_Okay, it's a truce, _responded the girl on the right. She held up hands in a _Stop _gesture—a gesture meaning that she would yield and not interrogate further. _First, we both can't have the same name—Heather Mason. And if I'm reading you the right way, that's not your real name, either. It's not mine… So what'll it be? _

The girl on the left paused in thought, not communicating her thoughts. Somehow, they were both quickly now able to control this form of communication as so they could mentally send what they wanted to send. _Okay, _mentally responded the girl on the left. _I'll call myself Cheryl Mason.. You can keep the name 'Heather' if you want. _"Cheryl then, got that?"

_Okay, thanks, _mentally responded the girl who now called herself Heather. _I'll still be Heather…since it's as good a name as any. Helen sounds good too, but it's maybe too old-fashioned. _There was the sound of rusty hinges in the air.. _Did you hear that? _

To that, the girl calling herself "Cheryl" nodded her head. _Sounded like a door or something. It's always doors, isn't it? But it sounded like it was coming from above. But I don't see any doors attached to the ceiling. _

_Hey, what's that? _Heather saw two dull red objects flutter down from the ceiling—dropping lightly onto the bed. She picked up one of them and felt a thin rectangle of plastic. The other girl did the same for the other. _Looks like an ID, _she communicated. _I thought they were just red objects._

In the dim gloom of the bedroom, "Cheryl" was glad that she was so positioned by the window as the dim light of the breaking dawn shone through the bedroom curtains of this place. She tilted it. It was actually some kind of ID, looked like a driver's license. And look… _This one's got my name on it: Cheryl Mason, _she mentally said to the other girl. _Come over here by the light. What's yours say?_

"Heather" walked around the bed to stand by the bedroom window. She didn't feel uncomfortable at all, approaching this stranger who looked so much like her. Maybe it was because the other girl felt like a sister or something? And now it was like they could think with the same mind. Still… Standing next to the other girl, she read her own plastic-card ID. _Look at that, mine's also got my name on it: Heather Mason. This is too weird. _

Cheryl thought back, _You_ _know what's even weirder? This thing is dated 1988. I don't know about you, but I've been in weird places before. Weird things like this have happened. And I'm guessing similar stuff happened to you too, stuff that ought not bother us… What do you think?_

_You're right about that one, _responded Heather. _Now what? These are both high school IDs. But we're both nineteen—and still in High School. Huh, that must make us seniors or something. But I don't exactly remember enrolling._

To that, Cheryl communicated, _Who_ _knows? Maybe we did…in this world. _She heard Heather gasp. _Yeah…_ _Think about it. We're not in the same world we were in when something happened to us on the bus. Something really screwy is going on here._

Heather shrugged her shoulders. She then communicated, _Well, we haven't got too much choice about what to do right now. I know it's weird. Maybe we should just go along with this until we can find a way back home? If you're really anything like me, you'll be a big help in figuring this out._

"_Hmmph_… _Ha-ha!_" To that, Cheryl gave a laugh. Smiling, she thought, _And_ _if you're anything like _me, _you'll be an even bigger help. First I guess we'll have to get ready for this crazy school we're supposed to be in… High school? _She moved from the bedroom window to the beside lamp—_clicked _on the lamp to flood the room with light. _I've got the shower first…wherever it is in this house. But I'll let you pick out our outfits. If we're going to be twin sisters or something, we may as well act like it._

_Bath robes ought to be in your closet, _thought Heather. _How I know that, I don't know. _She sensed Cheryl's agreement and watched her move to the suggested location on her side of the bedroom. One bed, but there was a closed and desk for both…. She watched as Cheryl took off sneakers and jeans, followed by a peeling off of her tank-top. Even her panties and bra were the same. The underclothes came off too, leaving her to stand naked as she opened the closet to reach for the bath-robe.

Heather regarded Cheryl's nude body—exactly like her own body…as far as she could see. Heather never really had a good look at her own back. But when Cheryl did a half-turn to put on her robe in a swirl, Heather saw how lithe she looked, a lean and lithe look that was just a little starved-looking. She had an almost petite and waiflike look to herself that let her pass for being someone younger for so long. Petite and waiflike as she was, Cheryl—like Heather—certainly had a woman's developed body. Her vaguely muscular legs seemed to have no fat beneath the skin, the legs and young womanly hips beneath a flat and hard abdomen, her torso with ribs that showed, slender arms working as she covered her breasts and body with the robe. Thin is good, but not when you look a little starved—_ugh_. Maybe she ought to have spent more money on better food after all? Still, Heather liked what she saw… _If she's got a body exactly like mine, then I look damned good_.

Cheryl could sense Heather's interest. She didn't mind being stared at while briefly nude. After all, they were practically sisters. But there was concern. Did they both look _too _thin? Heather was feeling just a little bit sorry for Cheryl, feeling sorry for anyone who had to live the way she did as well; it seemed that Cheryl—wherever she came from—was also working almost every day to earn a living and was almost always worried.

_Hey, it's life, _communicated Cheryl. _I'll be back. You can have the shower next, of course. I won't be long… No, wait. You know what? It'd save us both time if we went at the same time. You know, wash my back, I wash yours? It's not like we don't have anything we don't have anything we haven't seen before. _

_Yeah, what the Hell, _mentally agreed Heather. That in mind, she undressed and stepped nakedly over to the closet to get another robe. She could feel the bedroom air on her bare skin—as well as the feel of Cheryl's appraising gaze. Heather said nothing, but the interest she felt coming from Cheryl felt…good. She put on the robe and went with Cheryl to the shower.

…

2.

…

After the girls washed, they came back to the bedroom to dress in similar outfits. Yes, there were jeans in 1988—even if they were just a bit tighter than the kind Heather and Cheryl were used to wearing. And Heather also found sleeveless tee-shirts. They both had the same purses. It so turned out that the clothes available in this bedroom fit their bodies perfectly…as if the clothes had been worn by them all of their lives. The fact that the clothes fit their bodies just right, tight-fitting as they were, meant that the outfits had to have been chosen ahead of time…as if they were expected. Or it meant that they lived here all of their lives. But it wasn't their lives, they didn't think. _It could be, maybe we're just visitors, _thought Heather.

"Visitors" or not, the girls found that everything was set up for the lives of twin girls still in high school. Of course there were the clothes. Though they shared the same dresser-drawer and the same bed, they had separate closets and desks at opposite ends of this carpeted bedroom. Both desks had bookshelves next to them, both bookshelves full of books on the occult: witchcraft, spiritualism and such. The books were all dated prior to 1988, of course. _Huh, and I almost expected our books to be ported over from our time, _thought Cheryl, standing by her bedroom desk.

_At least they're our style, _thought back Heather, standing by her own bedroom desk at the other side of the room. She looked at the big electronic clock-radio next to the bed—against the wall right of the bedroom window. _It's 6:33_ _in the morning. Like, when are we supposed to be ready for this school, anyway? And how the Hell are we supposed to do well if we don't even know the classes?_

_No problem, there ought to be a class schedule in our backpacks or in our purses. Gimme a sec… _Cheryl sat down on the edge of her desk and slipped her fingers inside of the purse… _Yeah, here it is… _Heather could sense her "twin" reading the paper schedule she found. _Like, oh my gosh! We have to be at the bus-stop in half an hour, going to some strange school—all full of people we don't know and think they know us! This sucks!_

Heather responded, _Did_ _they even say 'sucks' back in 1988? And, like, the thing to do is fit in and try not to be too weird. But first I wanna get downstairs and see if there's anything to drink before we go. I'm not hungry at all, but I'm really thirsty._

There was hesitation on Cheryl's part. _I dunno… Is it really safe to eat or drink stuff from an alternate reality? Last time I was in a situation like this, I found health drinks from the real world to get me through…like somebody's been leaving 'em lying around to help out. _

Heather thought back. She had been in that same kind of situation. _Well… This place doesn't _look _like an alternate reality_, _though I've gotta admit—1988 must've been a pretty weird time. Or it _is _a pretty weird time since we're in it. But I'm thirsty and don't wanna end up shriveling up into human jerky. _She picked up her school backpack and crossed the bedroom to get to the door. _If I drop dead, then you'll know better. Besides, we both know that dying isn't really the worst thing that can happen to a person._

_Yeah, you're right, _responded Cheryl. She then picked up her own backpack and followed her other self out of this room. _I'm hoping I don't find out what happens when one of us dies in this time, though. Since we almost think with the same mind and stuff, maybe we both die?_

_I sure as Hell hope not, no offense, _responded Heather's thought. They were now both out in the short hallway on the second story of the house—a pretty roomy house, likely a small mansion. _Like, whoever owns this nest must be really loaded. Wonder who our 'parents' are supposed to be? _Now both girls were headed for the stairs down. _I guess we'll find out._

They praddled down the staircase with all the agility and confidence of people who have lived in this house all of their lives—which was another one of those things that felt odd. It was also like how they _knew _where the bathroom was on the second floor and how they just _knew _that their school schedule was in their backpacks. There were just so many traces of things they just _knew_ from this world. It all had a vague and uncanny sort of familiarity. There was something to all this… It was bits and pieces.

The two girls then stepped through the sizable carpeted living room—a chandelier overhead from the ceiling and carpeted floor with a grand furniture set in the middle. This was the inside of a small mansion. Oh yes, the "parents" are pretty loaded, alright! _I think there oughtta be canned juice in the fridge, _thought Heather. Why did she think this? It was for the same freaky reason that she and Cheryl handled this all with a faint sense of déjà vu.

They went into the professionally equipped kitchen and around the raised chef's counter-setup in the middle. _Kitchen island-thing, _thought Cheryl. The refridgerator was to the right. And when they came to the tall white electric appliance, Cheryl opened it up to reveal the illuminated coolness inside.

_Lo and behold! I was right, _thought Heather. _Canned juice… There's a magnum of bottled wine in here too. _She also had a look around the thing. There was plenty else to consume as well.

_Nah, we'd best lay off the stuff 'til at least after school, _countered Cheryl. _Besides, the "parents" we have in this world will probably not look to kindly on their below-aged kids getting plastered with their Dom Perrignon. We aren't exactly living with Douglas_ _here, you know. _

Heather paused with a hand on the bottle. _Yeah, you've got a point. _So she took out three cans of juice: one handed to Cheryl, the other two for herself. Cheryl wasn't thirsty, but Heather really was. Two cans of juice in both her hands, Heather used her right hip to bump the refrigerator door closed.

The girls then moved to sit at the raised counter against a wall of the kitchen, both sitting down with knees together and elbows atop the counter, sitting the same way. Cheryl pulled the tab on her drink while Heather was already drinking her first can—her throat working as she quickly drank the stuff. Yes, she really _was _very thirsty. The can to her lips, she thought, _One_ _good thing about this telepathy stuff is how we can talk with our mouths full. It's like ventriloquism, only better._

_Even if it's not really "talking," _responded Heather. She was already nearly done with the first can. _Don't know about you, but I'm still trying to get used to the idea of somebody else being inside my head and stuff. Well, I suppose it's only fair since I'm in your head, too._

_This world is going to get us used to the strangest things, _communicated Cheryl. There was the sound of the kitchen door opening. She half-turned around on the kitchen stool, her mouth went open in surprise, her eyes opening wider…

Heather heard Cheryl's thought. She could also sense Cheryl's very severe shock. _Oh…my…God… _The girl nearly dropped her can of juice. _Heather, when you turn around, whatever you do, don't look as surprised as I am. _"Good morning, Mom!"

Heather thought back, _Look surpised? Why would I do that? _The other girl nevertheless slowly turned herself around on the wooden stool while mentally preparing herself for seeing something shocking. But no way could she prepare herself for the shock of _this _particular moment in the space of a few stooltop-rotating seconds.

There was no preparation for this at all. Maybe not even a few days of preparation could get her ready for this. Maybe if somebody told her who she was going to meet, it would have maybe been less of a severe surprise. And If Heather hadn't been so damned thirsty, she would have certainly dropped her own can of juice. Because now standing in this kitchen was somebody who ought not even exist.

The very familiar-looking woman now in this kitchen was a vision of grace and beauty… Of average height, she was far above average beauty. There was the flowing and slender outline of beauty in a silk nightgown that had the look of an evening gown, the outline of her long legs, up to thighs, flowing into into graceful hips and statuesque torso, slim arms at her sides, a long neck straight into a round framed with a corona of straight dark hair. The woman's name was Alessa. Only such a graceful name could belong to such a figure.

_There is no way in _Hell _is she here, _thought Cheryl to Heather. _Still, we've gotta say something quickly before she thinks something's wrong with us. _After all, if this was some kind of cosmic game being played on the girls, they had best play along. _I hope she can't communicate the way we do. If so, and if she's not on our side…_

_Then we're screwed, _finished Heather. _We… Alessa had more power than we did. If we are gonna be done in, we may as well get on our backs and try not to take it so hard._ "Good morning…Mother," she said. "We're just enjoying an early start to the day and stuff. You know, the early bird gets the worm! Not that I'd want to eat worms right now… That's way too gross." _Like, I'm babbling! Help me out here!_

_Chill out and stuff, _mentally communicated Cheryl. "Yeah. Something got us up early. Since we were already awake, we said to ourselves, 'May as well get up now.'" _Or maybe we're still asleep, and this is the nightmare? Well, at least she hasn't done anything evil yet. _

"I am so very glad you chose to show a degree of personal discipline," responded the graceful, beautiful woman of long dark hair. "It so pains me whenever you show lapses in personal discipline. After all, you have yet to survive the opening travails of college."

_College? As if finishing High School without trouble was enough, _mused Heather. "Well, uh… I kinda guess so." She began drinking the rest of her can of juice. Can to her lips, she communicated, _Just chime in any time you feel, "sister." I'm not getting any bad vibes from her other than the fact that this is downright creepy. _

"So be it," added Alessa. "Very well, I shall return to my slumber for this day. This cold of mine has afflicted me over the space of these past days, more so since last night. It is as if there was a radical change in the air to prompt this, something new in the ambiance."

"Well, you don't say," added Cheryl. "I hope you get better." _And _ _I hope you don't try to challenge us for our souls or anything like that. _"We're going to school, but if you want us to stay here…" She sensed Heather's warning, essentially telling her to not push it. "We'll be going then."

Alessa, their "Mother," closed her eyes and nodded—dark eyes. "And so I bid you, fair day," came her words. The graceful woman opened her eyes before slowly turning to leave the kitchen—presumably to head back for the parent's bedroom. Only when she left did the two girls show their excitement.

Heather clamped both hands over her own mouth to keep herself from shouting out. _Like, how is that possible? I thought our past self was dead. After all, we killed her in three forms! Now she's walking around like nobody's business_

_Let's cool it, _responded Cheryl, her mental voice calm. _Like, this has to be a coincidence. Maybe her name was just Alessa—just because? You've got to admit that it makes some kind of sick sense. She _was _our "Mother," after all. Or maybe, if _you're _here and _I'm _here, then there ought to be some kind of reasons for it. _

…

Alessa should not have existed. That was because, in a past life, Cheryl or Heather had been someone named Alessa. They had the same physical looks. Also true was how they had the same kind of voice back then. Just as Cheryl and Heather could exist—two of the same girl—then maybe Alessa ought to exist as well? Again, it made its own kind of sense. An ordinary version of Alessa was at least better than the alternative—one with "powers." Besides, if it had been the Alessa connected with their existence, Cheryl had the idea that there would have been a third—or fourth—figure using telepathy.


	6. Chapter 6

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 6—Nonsensical Circular Conemplation

Their bus stop was actually down the street—right beneath a six-sided red _stop _sign. Hands at her sides, Heather looked up at the metal sign and the morning sky beyond while Cheryl stood with her arms crossed and regarded a storm drain on the street. It was a tad bit chilly this morning, making the girls regret maybe wearing sleeveless tops. But the sun was making its way up this morning, making for the feeling of warm sunlight on face and bare arms. There was almost no traffic save a police car going by.

Above was a sky that was growing into the blue color of this day. Heather lowered her gaze from the red metal sign, now looking to the green of the pine trees that lined this gray suburban road. It was going to be one of those clear, bright days where the sun made everything look sharp and clear—from the rough textures on bricks of walls to blades of grass, like green hair growing out of the dirt.

_Huh, things don't change much with us, _she thought. _Here we are in waiting for a bus, any kind of bus all over again. _The girl made eye-contact with her double. _I'm not too keen on going back to school—or any school. _Two ambulances drove by and distracted her for a moment, those vehicles resembling vans with humps on top. It must not be an emergency since the vehicles were not speeding and had no sirens on. They were moving like white-colored hearses.

_That makes you and I both, _mentally responded Cheryl. Her eyesight then sort of drifted to the long suburban road. It really was quite a ways to the ends of this lane, the road stretching off into the suburban distance left and right before drifting into a distant curve. She thought, _Being_ _called a 'witch' is not on my high-point of favorite pastimes. Like, other kids can be so _cruel.

_Well, we are considered "kids" even though we're a year beyond minority age, _responded Heather. _Getting past eighteen doesn't make us adults yet in everybody's eyes. And we're nineteen. What the Hell are we still doing in High School? I've had some weird traces of memory about being in some kind of hospital._

Cheryl agreed. Since waking up and walking into this life, she too had been "recalling" more and more traces of memories that did not necessarily belong to her. It was a sort of reincarnation—being born into a new life. Heather was getting the same sort of thing. Except in this case, they didn't die and get born again. At least she didn't hope so.

_I'm sensing your worry, _thought Heather. She smiled. _Don't worry about it. It's not like me. And if you're going to be a direct double of me, you had best keep to acting like me. We've been through worse. _

_Don't I know it…_responded Cheryl. She continued regarding the local scenery. _So this is the town of Sunset Meadows, huh? Doesn't this town look an awful lot like that _other _town we know so well? The houses around here are a little bigger and stuff, but the pine trees and woodsy sort of townspeople-feel to everything is all part of it… Makes me wish I was back in the city. _

Hearing that thought from Cheryl, Heather mulled it over with pressed lips. Come to think of it, the similarities _were _there. _Yeah, even if our apartment-building is sorta_ _ghetto, I wouldn't mind getting back there myself. What's up_ _with small towns being so creepy? Does _every _backwoods residential community have to be troubled with people who have whacked-out religious hang-ups that mess up reality?_

Cheryl shook her head. She responded, _Well, we don't know what kind of trouble this town has yet. We don't even know why the Hell we're here, do we? Maybe it's that cult's revenge on us. We _did _keep their god from being born. _She paused… _Don't know how they pulled off time-travel, though. _There was a familiar distant gurgling roar of a diesel engine coming down the street. The girl didn't have to turn her head to know the source. _And here comes a crazy cult right now. _

Both girls regarded the massive gold-colored vehicle driving up to their location right now—its gurgling roar filling up the local day. It eventually stopped, a hiss of its airbrakes. _Fwee-e-et, few-e-e-et! _One of the boys on the bus had pulled open one of the bus-windows. He whistled, then shouted in a pirate's voice, "_Ar-r-rgh!_ Hot-looking twin witch babes _ahoy!_" he shouted. "Prepare to be boarded, mateys!"

To that, both girls rolled their eyes. Was it going to be one of _those_ days? It was again a desire to get the Hell out of this town and out of the year 1988… Not that they knew how just yet, but the desire to be free of the annoyance factor was incentive enough. Even a town on the brink of Hell could be more enjoyable than the immature braying of high-school boys. _Braying _was the word both girls had in mind because they were both of the same mind, and the word implied the noises made by jackasses.

High school boys, exactly. Heather and Cheryl sighed as the bus door _hissed _open. They climbed up the dark rubber-ridged steps into the vehicle. This only resulted in _more _noise from that group of chaotic kids. "Pipe down back there!" yelled the bus-driver—a chubby middle-aged woman. "Or the next stop is the police station!" In a more calm voice, she said, "Good morning, young ladies." Both girls nodded greetings before going into the depths of this vehicle for seats together. As they boarded, a hearse was followed by a delivery van—a rabbit logo painted on the side.

…

Few people talked during the bus ride, but there were more than a few creepy stares coming from other seats. Other students kept looking in their direction. Some even stood up from their seats to try and look down at Heather and Cheryl. "_Sit down! _That's the last warning!" declared the bus driver-lady. But the lady said nothing after a while when some more younger ones took to standing to look at the twin girls.

Though they looked, there was not much of the usual chattering noise one associated with a school bus. But there was just that gurgling rumble-roar of the engine as this big sun-colored metal vehicle maneuvered the streets, the thrumming sound of the tires resonating throughout. That would be the sound of heavy tires thrumming moan on gravel. To the girls, that sound reminded them of eternity for some reason.

Getting to the school did not take an eternity, though. The bus pulled into the parking lot of a three-story building set near the downtown area—a structure that occupied six city blocks' worth of space, a building that looked vaguely like a shopping mall. _Click-clack, _a sound of the bus-door opening, and all the kids made a rush for the door. "_Have a good day!_" yelled the bus driver as the crowd piled out. Most of the teenagers bigger than Heather and Cheryl, though few we probably beyond eighteen. They were all flowing along the sidewalk and heading for the school front entrance.

And it was into this mad crowd that Cheryl and Heather dove into. They moved lightly and carefully among this swarm of humanity. Jostling and romping, talking and waving, the crowd was all headed for the same place. The girls could just barely see the front entrance looming. This crowd then narrowed and slowed in funneling into the building itself. It was into the building that the girls went.

From there, now inside this multi-story school, it was a matter of following the flow of the crowd until they came to the staircase upwards. They could feel the steepness of the stairs in their leg-muscles worked as they moved rapidly up the stairs—getting to the second floor hallway. _I've got an where our lockers are, _communicated Heather. _And we know where each other are. _There was a pause. _Thank goodness our lockers are right next to each other. _

A few quick steps in pockets of the hallway crowd, and they were at their own lockers—next to each other. While the teenagers at other lockers had to stoop slightly in turning the dials of the locker-doors, the girls just had to stand straight and start at it.

Heather thought to Cheryl. _Huh… I know your locker combo and mine at the same time. And guess what? We've got World History II class coming up. Gonna be pretty interesting how close this world's history is to ours. _

_So long as they don't talk about burning witches and stuff, we'll get along just fine, _responded Cheryl. "_Witchcraft!_ _The Devil's work!_" yelled some kid nearby. Some kids left and right of this set of lockers laughed, some looking at the girls. _Sounds like our schoolmates have got something against us. _She took a few textbooks out of the locker and put them in her backpack while she sensed Heather doing the same.

World History II was actually being taught in a classroom close by, up here on the second floor. It was a welcome relief to step out of the hallway and into quiet seats at school desks lined in straight rows. To the left were square windows that gave a second-story view of the surrounding neighborhood as morning sunlight shone in—a sunny morning. But this wasn't the place for daydreaming and fantasizing, even though it _was _beautiful day outside…

_These are our seats, _thought Heather to Cheryl. Their own school desks were in the second row from the front, to the left and right of the center-aisle. The girls unshouldered their backpacks and sat down at the schooldesks, the backpacks going underneath. It all felt incredibly familiar, though they had never been to this school.

The teacher walked in, a thirtyish or fortyish sort of thin man with black briefcase in his left hand. He set the briefcase to the side of the podium at the front of the classroom. "Take your seats," he said.

His outfit consisted of light-blue buttoned-down shirt and beige slacks-pants. The man's light brown hair was neatly combed and cut short, his clothes starched, black shoes brush-polished: a neat but casual sort of uniform. In fact, it was the uniform of all the male faculty of this school. Female faculty wore long black skirts with white blouses—more uniforms. Heather and Cheryl had the idea that the only thing making the teachers different were their names and their heads. All the teachers even had the same thin builds and same height, average height.

While the teacher was putting the day's date and a lecture outline on the board, students began putting their notebooks atop their desks, Cheryl and Heather doing the same at their own desks. They flipped open their notebooks past pages and pages of what seemed to be their own painstakingly neat handwriting, both girls writing in flowing and neat handwriting in coming to a blank page—both of them putting today's date at the tops of their pages. When your most recent past life involved religious school education and corporal punishment, you tended to be very neat and expeditious about these sorts of things. Both girls were dutifully acting as if a religious instructor was still over their shoulders.

"Good morning, class," began the teacher as he stood with chalk in his right hand. "In continuing with our series regarding technological advances and World War II, we turn to advances in aerospace technology. The progress made in terms of German jet propulsion for rockets, for example, greatly assisted this country in our space program. Such was a benefit. It also assisted the Canadians in launching atomic bomb strikes at the State of Nebraska immediately precluding the policy of _detante_ with our so-called Giant Neighbor to the North. Just as developments in terms of machine technology have benefits for societies, they also have their drawbacks in terms of immediate human costs…though the long-term profits are way off into the future."

_Canadians nuking America?_ _What the Hell, _thought Heather. Oh yes, both Cheryl and Heather knew that this world history was going to be a little different from their own—the history of an alternate reality. _I'm getting the idea that this world must be a bit on the loony side, _thought Heather. _How about you? _

_I agree. And it's likely to get even loonier as we listen in, I'll bet, _responded Cheryl. The good thing about being telepathic was that there was no need to pass notes when communicating. It was too bad that it only worked between them two—and maybe that six-foot guy in the rabbit costume that appeared in their nightmares. Or what if everybody was secretly telepathic and only keeping their minds shut while leaving the girls to maybe sound like complete idiots when they communicated thoughts?

The teacher was writing something on the chalkboard as he spoke. Heather and Cheryl took down notes, while most all other students did the same. "In 1963, it is known that a German inventor was performing controversial experiments in something you kids would probably know as warp-space technology from your that _Star Trek _show you all like so much—a technology of machines with spinning parts that could bend the fabric of space enough to shorten travel by tenfold…at least in theory.

"But when he blew off his right arm and lost both eyes during one such experiment, he ceased—and so did the experiments. All other scientists involved died in the Lunatic and Heathen wards of the hospital nearest their laboratory, talking madly of mutants from other universes and strange machines in Hell that gave ghosts the ability to manipulate time…

"Again we come to the idea of costs and benefits to society. What benefits could have been reaped from such technology? Even if there was the possibility of inducing degrees of insanity, imagine a world of machines that could bend space and time to radically shorten travel distances. It would perhaps be a slightly mad world, but it would also be faster."

2.

After a simple forty-five minutes of lecture by the teacher, World History class was over. "Do not forget tonight's homework read pages two thirty-three through two sixty-six. It's about the _Foo_ _Fighter _research, very important for the unit we are studying!" declared the teacher as the students piled on out of this class classroom. Heather and Cheryl had already written the homework down. If they were going to be stuck in 1988, then they may as well play their part as long as possible. They joined the group leaving this classroom.

And so they filed back into the school hallway crowd, both the girls walking close together. "Like, _wait up you guys!_" called out a female voice. They both managed to stop in this school-hall crowd, both cringing at the sound of the voice. Who said that? Heather was looking back while Cheryl kept looking ahead. The call of _you guys _so happened to be directed at them both. Who else was out to irritate them now? A few more steps, and the source of the girl's voice was closer. "Like, you didn't call last night! I was getting _so-o-o _worried!"

It turned out to be another high-school girl in clothes and of long dark hair. She was just about the height of Heather and Cheryl, though slightly taller and with a pale sort of complexion. Her dark eyes gleaming with happiness, but there was something about her…. Come to think of it, her outfit of white skirt and starched blouse made her look a great deal like a school nurse, the skirt going to mid-thigh and blouse a starched white; all she needed was the little white cap to go with it. Thought Cheryl, _Now what was her name again? Oh yeah…_

"Good morning to you, Linda," answered Heather. _Ugh, I guess we're sounding too formal, _she thought "What's up?" It was a little bit odd, using her voice now after speaking mind-to-mind so extensively with Cheryl.

Linda was now walking in step with them as they navigated the hall. According to those odd hints of memory in both Heather and Cheryl's mind, this _Linda _person was supposed to be a close friend and sympathizer. She was maybe a bit on the airhead side--if they used the word _airhead_ back in the 1980s—but still a close confidante. And given their reputation of being weirdoes and social outcasts, they could use any friends they could get.

"Ooh… You didn't catch the latest? Like, I overheard some of the janitors talking about it. You know, since I have to get here an hour before everybody else?" It was because Linda's father dropped her off here before going off to work at the police station. She leaned closer to Cheryl in an attempt at confidentiality—difficult in a crowded hallway. "I heard that a burnt corpse in a janitor's outfit was found in the school's courtyard. Get this, it was the janitor's uniform of _this _school. But _none of this school's janitors are missing. _Like the guy just came out of nowhere and died. That's why there were all of those cops here and stuff."

"_What?_" That was said by both Heather and Cheryl. Heather said, "A burnt body? You don't say…" There was always something about fire that was a little scary. Maybe it was how it moved as if it was alive, as if it liked to burn and eat things—even consume human flesh. It was so bright and you could feel the heat even when not close to it. Fire kills people.

"Uh-huh!" confirmed Linda, nodding her head once, her silky dark hair fluttering. "Well, we shouldn't talk about it now. Here we go… Ooh-ooh! I brought my ESP test kit. And Mr. Ocsoro, is covering study hall 'cause another teacher is out sick. Let's go!" She suddenly dipped and turned to the right to go into a classroom space that resembled a one-room mini-library: one of the designated "study-hall" rooms of this floor. Cheryl and Heather followed.

…

The study hall was indeed like a miniature library here on the second floor of this suburban school—a room the size of two classrooms put back-to-back. There were bookshelves at the far front and back sides of the class. The left wall actually consisted largely of tall grand windows with Venetian blinds open to give a sweeping second-story view of the big day outside, the sunny blue sky above and the landscape spread wide out there—lots of trees with some buildings barely visible. Students were somehow supposed to keep their focus on studies while in the presence of such a huge window, keeping their minds in here while being aware of their future roles in the world out there. And if they needed reference materials, there were books on the shelves dedicated to classics of discourse in the humanities: language, discourse and politics.

Sunset Meadows High School prided itself on producing the most articulate and bold leaders of the future. Many alumni went on to Ivy League institutions to become senior executives in all the major corporations and members of government. It therefore had study-halls where there were lots of extra texts for the leaders of tomorrow—i.e. the current students—were supposed to study up on their skills in spoken and written language as well as knowledge of the ways of the world. Such was the ideal.

But really, the kids didn't care much about all that. Most of the students showed up here to talk and gossip while the teacher overseeing them for the period had to show a great deal of tolerance. "_Good morning_, Mr. Ocsoro!" sang Linda, moving in a swish of long dark hair and faint bubblegum smell. She put her backpack down atop the table and came back to the front to talk to the white-haired middle-aged man in beige slacks and blue buttoned-down shirt. The buttoned uniform-shirt had a bronze pin on his left shirt-lapel to indicate his status as a senior instructor. "Remember when I argued that ESP exists as at least a possibility? I brought along proof! Heather and Cheryl!"

Cheryl thought to Heather, _What's she scheming? Well, whatever. Let's put our backpacks down and stuff. _Cheryl nodded, them both putting their backpacks down before they sauntered up to the front of this study-hall. More students were coming in before the hour-bell chimed. _We may as well go along with things._

Mr. Ocsoro regarded the girls—and what a contrasting bunch they were. There was cheery and perky Linda, talking with her hands primly folded in front of her skirt and a smile on her face. Now _she _was one of the proper manner—if somewhat overly enthusiastic. Then there were Heather and Cheryl, identical twins of lean bodies and dyed-blonde hair who were more dressed like mall-rat commoners than proper and upstanding students of this institution. Were tight jeans and tight-fitting sleeveless tank-tops really befitting such otherwise pretty young ladies—such a masculine manner of dress? Mr. Ocsoro thought back to the days when there was still a dress code enforced for students.

He sighed. "Very well, Linda. I accept your verbal proposal. What is it that you wish to prove? As a retired man of university-level cosmology, you shall find me surprisingly open-minded. What is your hypothesis?"

"Well-l-l…" began Linda. "I hypothesize that there are some groups of people who are capable of something…beyond mainstream means of sending messages." Her eyes sort of wandered to the side, then to the ceiling, before she finally returned eye-contact to the science teacher. "Those people are capable of _non-verbal_ communication. I shall prove this by way of a simple test. Materials include a telepathy test kit as developed by the University of California…and identical twin sisters. Right?"

To Cheryl, Linda's perkiness was becoming grating. _I guess that makes us twins and stuff after all, _she communicated to Heather. "If that's what you insist…" she said. _So are we gonna go along with this freaky card-test? It'll probably add to our reputation of being witches or something._

Heather responded, _I don't care what the Hell other people think about us_. _The idiots who thing we're weird are just a bunch of airheads and jerks, anyway. Let's do it. _"I'm with Cheryl. Yeah, we'll go along with it."


	7. Chapter 7

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 7—Pieces of Another Place

"Great!" cheered Linda, giving a big smile. "It's really easy. Mr. Ocsoro, this is the procedure. I'll have both subjects sit at the table, back to back. I'll show one of the subjects the card. And the other one has to guess what is on it—presumably by reading the other girl's mind. _So-o-o-o…_ Let's go for it!"

_You heard her. Let's give it a whirl, _thought Heather. Eyes of curiosity on them from the other students, they both moved to the circular wooden table with their backpacks atop it. The girls moved to places opposite ends of the table, facing away from the center, facing away from each other. And they both sat with the same poise: sitting up straight, knees together, and hands resting lightly on thighs.

Linda was busy with taking some things out of her backpack: a pack of cards and a hand-sized sketchpad. Mr. Ocsoro stepped closer to the table and stood with hands folded behind his back while the perky, dark-haired girl shuffled the cards before setting them on the table. She gave the sketchpad to Cheryl, then jauntily stepped over to Heather, picking up the cards again on the way.

"Okay, it works like this," said Linda. "I show you the card. Then you have to somehow communicate to your sister what you're seeing." She looked past Heather to the other girl sitting opposite. "And, like, no peeking you guys!"

"May I execute part of the procedure?" asked Mr. Ocsoro. "I refer to the card aspect. It would further insure impartial results." He saw Linda nod. And so he moved over to where Linda was standing and accepted the pack of cards. A quick and precise shuffling of the cards, the senior instructor took three steps back from where Heather sat. He flipped one card forward—Heather looking at it.

_A red circle, _communicated Heather. _Like, that's it. There aren't any special markings on it or anything. Since you don't have any color pens, I guess you'll just have to draw the circle and then put the word _red _in parenthesis or something corny like that._

_I got it. _Over at her side of the table, Cheryl did so—holding the notepad against jeans-covered thighs while drawing a careful circle. And yes, she put a sentence next to it: _This circle is red_…. _Okay, I did it. A red circle, huh? There's something about that. It can't be coincidence. Oh well, whatever._ "Ready for the next one," she said aloud, holding up the notepad.

Mr. Ocsoro had a glimpse of what Cheryl drew, which was exactly the result. He opened his mouth in surprise to say something…and shut it. He set the red circle card face-down atop the table. "To eliminate it from the pool of probabilities," he explained. There was a _flippety_ sounding shuffling of cards as Mr. Ocsoro rearranged the deck. He then flipped up another card and presented it to Heather. This card showed a square with wavy lines running through it. And he saw Heather's dark blue eyes regard it. What was going on in this young woman's mind?

_Oh, like they're not even trying to be tough, _communicated Heather. _Well, whatever. It's a_ _square with wavy lines running through it. It's black and white. Got it? Yeah, and I'm seeing the science teacher-guy start to look a little on the pasty side…like he's not believing what he's saying. _

_A square object…with wavy lines running through it, _echoed Cheryl's thought. Heather could sense Cheryl's mind working, had glimpses of the black square being drawn on white paper. Then came the lines. Whenever Cheryl was really concentrating on sending information to Heather, it was also like she was a little bit in Heather's mind too… It even made her feel a little dizzy. She wondered if it was the same way with Heather. And she drew the simple square with the wavy lines. _Okay, what else have you got?_

"She wants to know what's next," said Heather, looking up at Mr. Ocsoro. _I'm wondering when he's gonna to start believing this. This… This is too easy! And, like… Could you lighten up on the concentration? It feels like your peekin' around in my brain a little. _

"Now for a change," said Mr. Oscoro, setting the card atop the table. "You, Heather, and your sister shall now alternate roles—the sender becoming the receiver…" He looked to the side. "Linda, are you taking notes on the proceedings?"

"Ooh!" Linda's eyes were too wide open and herself too surprised by all this. She dashed to her backpack on a nearby desk and took some seconds to get out a notepad. Her fingers went to work as she quickly wrote out what was going on… Being at this school long enough, the students learned to take quick notes. Linda wrote what happened:

One subject is the _sender_; the other is the _receiver_. Both sat opposite. Items shown were thus: One red circle. One square, wavy lines. Random cards, shown to one, the other correctly drew them, knew them: extra-sensory perception. A random shuffling of cards, and the receiver guesses correctly. "Getting it so far...!"

By now, Heather and Cheryl swapped sides—walking around the table. Heather was now sitting facing the front of the room and with the sketchpad in her lap. Cheryl was now sitting primly and looking plain-faced at Mr. Ocsoro. She heard Heather's thoughts. _You know,_ _I hope you don't plan on forging any checks any time soon, 'cause your handwriting is exactly like mine. Alright, let's get this party started again. _"We're ready, Mr. Oscoro."

"Very well then," said Mr. Ocsoro. _Flippety-flip-flipetty-flip-flip_… He again rapid-shuffled the deck. Thinking on it, he shuffled a few more. The cultured elderly gentleman of a teacher then almost dropped the card, pinched his fingers on one corner of it to present the card's face.

_Oh, please spare me! This is way too easy,_ thought Cheryl. She was looking at a very simple drawing of a rabbit. _It's a bunny-rabbit, a cute and cuddly… Wait a minute. Make that not so cute and cuddly. I'm getting a really weird feeling about this rabbit. I'll keep staring at it. Can we send mind-pictures to each other?_

_Keep staring, I think so, _responded Heather. _Haven't really drawn stuff in a while. _Her pencil carefully traced curves. _Alright, that ought to do it. It's pretty simple for a rabbit and stuff. I would've drawn in details for fur maybe… Are you thinking about a metal head to go with it?_

_Yeah, I am, _responded Cheryl_. What the Hell do rabbits have to do with metal face-masks? Ah well, I'll tell 'em you're done. _"She's done."

He then slowly set the third card atop the table. "Now, the subjects may stand. Heather, bring me the sketchpad. We shall gauge your results." But in truth, the man knew—sure as Hell—what the results were going to be: Even his aging eyes could see the other girl had drawn all three objects correctly.

A slight frown on her lips, Heather handed over the sketchpad. Mr. Ocsoro set it atop the table—showing the drawings. He turned over the cards one at a time: the red circle, the square with the wavy lines through it, the rabbit. Cheryl thought she saw a slight tremble to Mr. Ocsoro's fingers when he turned over the rabbit card. Again, there was that bad feeling that something was not right about that rabbit. "Do you see this, Linda? Was this card-deck in fact from the University of California?"

"Ooh, yeah they were! They're the official set used for ESP testing!" cheered Linda. "I told you so, Mr. Ocsoro! I told you they're special! Everybody's calling them _witches _and stuff, being meanies all the time. But they're better than that, 'cause…" She saw Mr. Ocsoro hold up his right hand—a hand that meant _Silence, child._

"So it has come to pass…" began Mr. Ocsoro. "Heather and Cheryl, I am going to talk. You are going to listen. This is important." His voice was flat and worried, his eyes staring off into the distance. "If you encounter Frank again, you must learn to understand him. You should also understand machines. Now I am feeling especially ill. Linda, I leave it upon your honor to oversee this study hall in my absence for this period." He lowered his right hand and began to walk unsteadily towards the study-hall door. But before he left, he stopped. "I would congratulate you, but your role is not an envious one. Good day…" One of the lights flickered when he left the room.

_Something's not right here, not the rabbit, not what he said, _thought Heather. She went over to the door of this study hall, Linda opening her mouth to say something. Heather instead took a step out into the school hallway to look around—looking left, then right. Mr. Ocsoro was nowhere in sight.

_What gives? The man just left not even a minute ago. No way an old guy could move faster than the speed of light. Something… _"_Ow!_" she said aloud. Out of nowhere, a spike of headache jabbed into the right side of her head. And the lights _flickered _again. "Ooh…" She grabbed the doorjamb. _Cheryl, I'm not feeling so good, _she thought.

In the classroom, Cheryl had a similar pain, enough to make her stagger. She was trying to reach Heather and went to her knees. A few breaths, and she stood up. _I feel it too, _thought the girl. A group of study-hall kids looked up from their conversations just long enough to glance over here at Cheryl—before going back to their talk.

Linda didn't know what to do immediately. She looked to the left, saw Heather…or Cheryl…holding onto the doorjamb. To the right, the other twin-girl was on her knees and clutching her head. Which girl was which? Never mind; that wasn't important right now! Which should she help? Oh, never mind! "I'll get the nurse!" she said.

"_No nurses!_" said both girls at once. If Lisa looked worried before, she now looked bewildered. What could be wrong with nurses?

Over by the door, Heather straightened herself out to stand her full height, though her height of just under five-feet wasn't too tall. "Like, it's no problem. We'll just head over to the bathroom to wash our faces and stuff with water." _And maybe to throw up._ "We'll be fine." Heather then walked back into this room—an unsteadiness to her walk. Cheryl was standing by now. The girls left the room together.

…

2.

…

Out in the hallway, they began walking towards the bathroom. The headache was beginning to fade enough for them to communicate. _Now they know about us, _said Cheryl. She thought, _Not_ _like I care or anything, but that must've freaked out Mr. Ocsoro. The guy's a science teacher. But wat's up with what he said about our "roles?"_

Heather communicated the thought, _He said something about not envying us. Why? What's wrong with us? Or does this world have something lined up, some kind of trouble. Must be something, because those cards Mr. Ocsoro showed us aren't just coincidence. _Now they were coming to the bathroom on the left side of the hallway. Cheryl pushed open the door. They both walked in.

It was a grotesque, distorted nightmare of a bathroom that looked as if it didn't even belong in this world. It was a floor of square blackish-gray tiles. _Bzzt-flicker, flick-flick, _went the lights. The light, what little light there was, came from light-fixtures suspended by way of barbed wire. _Flicker… _The lights barely shone down on a single gray-metal sink and the wall. A grimy wall of rust-smeared tiles, some of the tiling itself was missing to reveal a lattice-work of rusted metal. There were supposed to be lights along the ceiling—a ceiling now made of crumbling flat mortar with the rusty reinforcing mesh exposed in places. To the right of the wash-bin was a concrete box with two dull red pipes poking out of the bottom. Below the sink, there was a pile of short gray pipes--each a quarter-meter long. To the right of the pile of pipes was a bathroom stall. And the rest of this place wasn't exactly in good condition, either: nasty walls all around that were dimly illuminated by the anemic lighting.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Heather aloud, using her voice. Using her mind, she communicated, _Like, let's just turn around and get the Hell out of here. What's a place like this doing at a nice, neat school, huh? A place like this ought not even exist… It's all nasty and rusty and disgusting I don't wanna be here anymore! _She sensed worry from Cheryl, turned to see the other girl was yanking at the door. There was the sound of her struggling with a jammed door mechanism.

_It's no good. The door mechanism's stuck, _responded Cheryl. _We both know that it's not broken. It's stuck…and so is this bathroom. Ugh… It _had _to be a bathroom, didn't it? _There was a noise. The girl gave a slight jump. _What was that?_

Something slithered down from the ceiling…to _thump _onto the floor. It began to stand up…and up…until it stood something over eight feet tall. The thing's head nearly brushed the ceiling. At least it had something that looked like a head between its lumpy, hairy shoulders—the body covered with curly, greasy fur or hair. _What the Hell…_

It, whatever it was, had a generally human shape of two arms, two legs and a torso—a head atop it. The thing could have been some kind of person at one time, because it was wearing ragged remnants of yellow pants and a ripped greasy buttoned-down sweater. "_Blerf!_" exclaimed the greasy creature. It reached out with both hands, holding some kind of tube and approached the girls.

Both Cheryl and Heather knew what to do with monsters_. Kill it, _thought Heather. Grotesque and distorted beings almost always seemed to be out to cause harm. _Kill the monster!_

"_Blerf, hweaf!_" exclaimed the monster again. It again held out the strange plastic tube-thing. It turned to Cheryl, then it shuffled around on its nasty, greasy feet. "Blerf!" it happily shouted in its animal-like voice.

Heather ran to the wall opposite the bathroom stalls to distract the thing while Cheryl dashed around the other way to get at some of those disassembled pipes from below the strange machines attached near the sinks, these pipes being an arm's length long. She rolled another pipe to Heather.

_Die, you nasty thing! _"_Hwup-hwup!_" went the monster.

Heather raised the pipe above her head, brought it down as _hard _as she could. There was a meaty _crunch _of something like bones beneath the hairy and greasy surface of the man-thing's skin. The tall creature crumpled sideways, its upper body leaning towards the floor. It was low enough for Cheryl to _whack _it over the head.

"_Elkric?_" it asked, falling to the bathroom's gritty floor. From there, it was making mewling and spitting sounds, the body twitching. No problem. Heather _stomped _its head. Cheryl decided to give the thing's back a solid _kick. _ That done, it stopped moving.

The tube-thing it held in its hands rolled away. Actually, the tube-thing was made of some kind of thick, see-through plastic or something. It wasn't really plastic, because it had a dent in it—some kind of weird see-through metal or something.

There was paper in there. _What's this? I'm gonna pick it up and see, _thought Cheryl. _Eww_…_it's all greasy! _There was a nasty look on her face as she put down the pipe to pick up the tube by the edges. _It's still got a little slime in the middle of the thing. Ick. Maybe if I gave a twist here and… _"Oof!"

Twisting both ends actually snapped open the tube. She also dropped it. It clattered to the lead-tile floor and Cheryl hopped away before it could touch her shins. Heather bent over to _carefully _grab the paper by a corner. Using her fingertips, she daintily unfolded the dry paper. _This thing's covered with some kind of blood and rust. Let's get it into brighter light so we can read it. _That was when the bathroom door opened.

Of course they walked quickly out of here and back into the hallway. _Nasty place… What the Hell is it doing in this world? _Not that they looked back on it, but the bathroom _flick-flickered _back into a clean and decent state when they walked away from it.

…

They walked back into the study hall, the place that resembled a miniature library. And they were just five steps in when Linda got up from her seat to hurry over. "Where _were _you guys?" asked Linda petulantly. She pouted. "I was gonna call the school security people or something. You were gone for a pretty long time, going to the girl's room. Everything okay?"

Heather shrugged while Cheryl answered. "Sure, everything's roses. We just ran into some trouble in the bathroom. That is all. We're perfectly fine now." She then mentally added, _Yeah, and that trouble was about seven feet tall and looked like something from a horror movie. _

Cheryl thought, _Yeah, a real horror-show… But what is she talking about, gone for a long time?_ She looked to the right, the clock high up on the wall. The girl then thought to Heather, _Hmmph_… _It looks like we were gone for forty minutes. Go figure._

_What the Hell, _thought back Heather. _We couldn't have been gone for four minutes, let alone forty! _She frowned before sending another thought to Cheryl. _Whatever._ _Let's just have a seat. _Heather then looked at Linda, gave a sort of _sorry-about-that _kind of look before walking with her twin, going back to the circular table where they had put their backpacks. Putting their backpacks on the floor, they unfolded the letter and set it

Of course Linda had to come _right _on over. She pulled up a seat. "_You guys!_" she whined. Leaning forward conspirationally, she said in a lower voice, "Like, do you _know _what you two are? Do you know what that makes you? You've got _powers._"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Heather. While answering, she sensed Cheryl's annoyed thoughts. _I know, she's a pain._ _But maybe we ought not brush off somebody who seems to be our only friend in this world. _"So it seems like we can do a magic trick or two? We just know what's on each other's minds."

"No-no-no! There's more than that!" impatiently added Linda, her voice becoming loud. She giggled and briefly put a hand to her lips before continuing. "Oops… Like, listen. How do you know you don't have more powers than that? You've _got _to. It's all in the ESP booksBe back in a sec" The dark-haired girl in prim clothes quickly stood to prance on over to one of the bookshelves at the end of this study hall.

_Okay, now it's your turn to put up with Linda and I'll read this letter-thing we got from the monster, _thought Heather. Cheryl handed it over. Heather then began to read the hand-written letter. _It's from Douglas. But how…? _Cheryl could then sense Heather's mind reading—like slight echoed mumblings off in the distance of someone else's voice as words were being read into her mind.

"Okey-dokey! Here we go!" said Linda, coming back with a big old book. She plonked it onto this table and flipped it open. "Table of contents… Okay… Ah! Here's the section, 'Extra-Sensory Perception.' It's a good intro." Her slender fingers then delicately and rapidly flipped pages. "Here we are! It says here that… Oh, here it is. It says right here that extra-sensory perception, including telepathy, isn't limited by space or time."

"Let me see," said Cheryl. Linda turned the big book around and slid it across the table. She saw the paragraph that Lind was talking about. Truthfully, she always thought that reading this sort of material was good if just read for fun and not taken seriously. Now it was supposed to have some kind of relevance to what was going on.

According to this book, telepathy is a form of extrasensory perception. It extends beyond the normal layers of human senses to communicate directly with another mind. Not voices, not sounds, not even sight is used. Some suspect this mind-to-mind form of communication to be related to electromagnetic phenomena, yet such would fail to explain certain aspects of it. In short, none of the senses are involved—hence _extra sensory_.

Some suspect that telepathy is related to a form of electromagnetic phenomena, yet telepathy extends beyond mere electromagnetic energy used by machines. Even radio waves—a form of electromagnetic energy--take seconds to cross vast distances. Also true is how many kinds of electromagnetic transmission are subject to interference over vast distances. Yet telepathy is unhindered by distance: a person could be a continent away and yet still be able to send thoughts, instantaneously. Modern understandings of the laws of physics dictate that everything takes time and that nothing exceeds the speed of light. In that telepathy is capable of exceeding human senses and goes beyond current understanding of physics, it implies an extra-dimensional aspect to this form of communication—opening possible venues of transmitting or receiving information from other worlds, alternate realities, or even other dimensions.

"Hmmph… Other dimensions," mused Heather aloud. _You've got to hear this, _she thought. Then she sensed Cheryl stop reading—actually re-reading—the letter from Douglas. _This mind-communication stuff could maybe say that the guy in the rabbit suit might not be of this world._

_That figures_, thought Cheryl back to Heather. _But where is he when he wasn't randomly appearing to us? Come to think of it, we haven't seen 'em for a while. By the way, this letter from Douglass is about how he's worried. So you were living with a Douglass, too? Of course, I was calling myself 'Heather' too. _

"Hey, no fair!" complained Linda. "Like, I can see that sort of thinking looks on your faces when you're doing that thinking stuff with each other. How can I help you out if I can't be let in on what you're saying…uh, _thinking_ to each other?"

"We can't help it," said Cheryl. "But you've gotta admit, thinking words to each other is a lot more convenient than using the voice. First a person has to inhale. Then we're moving our mouths and using our throats… Just a little inconvenient." She passed the letter to Heather.

Heather read the brief note. The paper felt a little funny, a bit dry, like it's been sitting somewhere for a hundred years or something. But this was definitely Douglas' handwriting. She read it:

_Heather,_

_I know your life is none of my business and I cannot replace your father. I also know that you are not a child. But you have me at least a little bit worried. Where did you go? All of your clothes are here. And there are no notes or telephone calls. It's like you just…disappeared. Why? Is the cult after you? Meanwhile, I am still out of town on a case: a missing artifact. There's something suspicious about the artifact and maybe the people who it allegedly belongs to._

_--Douglas_

The date on the note was that of three days since she left. Yet the paper felt dehydrated and stiff—exactly how paper would feel if it was especially aged. Yet a look at a calendar next to the study-hall door indicated that the year was 1988, back in time. Here she was, over a decade in a past that ought not even exist. Who-ever heard of being stuck back in time? Suddenly, she wanted to go home

_Yeah, that's how I feel too, _came Cheryl's thought. _So Douglass is still on some kind of case. But he said there's something 'suspicious' about the artifact. Maybe the town's some kind of weird cult like those 'Holy Mother' bastards who tried to kill us a few years ago. Hmm. I wonder what Douglass is doing now, or then… If he's in the future, that means he's going to do something, right? _


	8. Chapter 8

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

"She Doesn't Live Here Anymore" ("Por Vida" Remix)

lyrics by Alejandro Escovedo

vocal by John Cale

Chapter 8—Not Anymore

It was very late in the day, the day's shadows long as the sky was taking on tones of vague red. Douglas drove this car onto the apartment building's parking lot, parked it. The engine idled until he shut it… There was only one other car in the parking lot, and so he could park almost anywhere—even right up close to the front. He chose to park at the far-right side of the parking lot because the kids who lived in this building liked to play games. There were weekend days when some of the local kids asked Douglass if Heather could come out to play. Heather was just about their height, also young-looking and pretty. They therefore saw her as being non-threatening and friendly. The parking lot served as a decent a place as any place for the local kids to play since the city park was so far away. This lot was wide, flat and open.

Truth was that so many of the families living in the apartment-building were so poor that almost none could afford a car. Even if they could, they'd have to pay for the vehicular insurance. Then they would have to pay the state's licensing fees for motor vehicles, the registration on top of that…so on and so fourth. With the local economy the way it was, it was also unlikely that people wouldn't be able to afford personal vehicles for some time. All the jobs were moving out of the city, the money with it.

Thought Douglass to himself, _What_ _am I doing in this place? _ Another six weeks of the paid caseload he was taking, and this man could easily put a down-payment on a nice house in the suburbs. Then all he'd have to do is find a pretty lady, get a big car. Yes, it would be the American dream: house with the white picket fence…except that he already had experience with kids. His only son was shot doing something he shouldn't have been doing. Why not? Heather just up and left, disappearing like a runaway.

He wondered if he should care about her. Heather was _not _his daughter. She was an adult, having passed into the age of majority not long ago. And she could not ever be his daughter. The only real parents she ever had were both killed: one by disease, the other murdered by something that didn't even belong in this world.

And there he sat with both hands on the steering wheel, thinking of where his life was going. This middle-aged detective was especially tired after another prolonged drive. He really had to get back to this apartment-building to pick up something he should have brought with him from the start. His head was full of exhaustion, and his body feeling just about the same. In fact, he was very often feeling tired these days… It came with getting old.

_Getting old, _he thought to himself. When he died, he vaguely wondered what Heather would do with her life—if she decided to come back. The girl… No, she wasn't a child any longer. The young lady didn't really have anyone close to her. All she had was her job at the mall that didn't pay much but had her working long hours. Without a high-school diploma, what else could she do? He thought back to a conversation he had with her about maybe getting her GED.

She had yelled back, _To Hell with that! No way am I going to risk some cult finding me again. They killed my Dad. What'll I do if they find me hiding in the same apartment? They've been pretty stupid so far. But what if…?_

Douglas thought maybe about telling Heather that maybe he wasn't going to live forever, that he couldn't always be there to make sure that her faked up identity papers were in good shape: birth certificate, driver's license, social security cards… Hell, she _could _go take night-classes at the local high-school to get her GED, then go on to do something else with a better job. Right now, she was stuck living in this gritty old apartment complex. A pretty young lady with confidence and brains like her ought to be able to do better for herself than living in a broken-down old apartment with a paunchy, middle-aged man. Besides, living with a young and physically attractive female made him _uncomfortable _sometimes.

Maybe that was why she just ran away. Then that was good for both her and himself. A young lady like herself ought to seek out people her own age. It was better this way. Thinking this, Douglas took his keys from the ignition, unlocked the car-door and climbed out.

It was warm out here in the afternoon air. He had actually driven the whole way from the northern part of the state and back to this climate. Funny thing, it always seemed a bit warmer in this city than other places. It was probably because of the factories and the electric power plant deeper in town or something—the city air trapping more heat from absorbed sunlight or something. Trouble was, in the meanwhile, it still let off an awful lot of bad smoke some days.

That's enough. He couldn't sit in this car all day. Regardless of whether the girl was home or not, he still had things to pick up at the apartment. As he walked up the short set of stairs, every step felt a little heavier than it ought. _Daisy Villa Apartments_ read the simple rectangular plaque. He opened the door and entered the apartment building's foyer.

The ground-floor hallway was as gritty as ever. Years of indoor foot-traffic with shoes and boots made for the tiled floors looking pitted and worn. To the sides, the unpainted concrete walls had a sad a depressing look—like what one saw in prisons or military barracks for soldiers basic training. Along the concrete ceiling, there were exposed pipes and some wires running along them. Low-wattage incandescent light-bulbs made for the illumination because there were no windows. This was almost like a basement.

He walked on past the apartment building foyer an turned left. The sound of his footsteps followed him as he made his way to the apartment. There was the familiar dry clacking sound of metal mechanisms working as he turned the key. Door open, he walked into the silent place. There was just the sound of silence coming with him.

…

Inside the apartment, he stood there for a moment. "Heather?" he called out. Of course she didn't answer. That was because she wasn't here. The girl was long gone. And maybe she wouldn't come back. What could an old fool do about that?

Well, a _professional _detective ought to be able to find a person that was not lost and gone not too long ago. Heather could not have gotten far. Or maybe the girl could be on a bus headed for another city altogether. Who the Hell would want to live in this dump anyway? The graying concrete of the walls looked as if the structures were built some time around the last World War by Communist modernists. Then there were the memories. Two parents dead made for bad memories, indeed! _Maybe, _thought Douglas. Maybe that is the case. All that he could maybe do is leave another note for her.

The thought struck like a flashbulb. He thought, _Leave_ _another note? _It's amazing what stupefyingly astounding and stupidly simple ideas will come to a person. He was staring at the wall all this time and didn't get it. Would he leave _another _note? He left one before. So… _Wher_ _did the other note go? _He left it for Heather, left it scotch-taped to the wall-partition opposite the door when a person walks in. The man had been sure that Heather had not been back to take it. That was because Heather wasn't likely to leave blood-like stains on the wallpaper.

The man went over to the place on the all where he'd posted the note, kneeling slightly to be close up to where he'd put the thing. Now his eyes may be getting old, but leaning close let him see details of clues. There were clues here. Then he saw the stains. He saw a faint reddish smudge. Traces of the stuff went down to the floor. He would not have noticed it down there had he not been looking specifically for it.

The lines of stains sort of went down to the apartment's floor—traces of red. And so he traced it. He followed the traces over and around the wall. Why would a trail go back and into the kitchenette unless the person walking was dead? _Something _was in the kitchenette. He reached into his trenchcoat. Out came his weapon: a trusty 9mm cartridge-fed semi-automatic handgun given to him on a deal. It was from a police friend who had confiscated it from a crooked politician. Normally a very expensive weapon, it was now his for almost cheap. Something made a crackling noise in the kitchenette.

There was only a slight _snick _as he thumbed off the pistol's safety. He stepped further into this apartment, going around the wall-partition and made a quick-step into the kitchenette with his pistol aimed ahead. And so he stood—aiming for potential intruders.

What intruders were there? Well, if he was going to kill the refrigerator, this would have been a perfectly acceptable position. But then the thing would leak all kinds of coolant gasses out the back. Then it would have maybe killed _him. _That was because there was nobody here. "_Elkric!_ _Gnoph-split-plitter!_" gurgled a voice.

_What the Hell! _Douglass whirled to look at the sink, pistol aimed. He was actually holding his breath and had a finger on the trigger—the thing a person does just before firing. He had the feeling that there was _something _in the sink. After experiences in a curtained abandoned town, a person could actually believe that strange voices could really be monsters. Or maybe it was just really rotten food dumped down there?

_Monsters, _he thought. Outside of that certain town, there were no such things as monsters. And didn't doing what Heather did pretty much kill them off for good? But _something _must have made that noise. The idea of bad food gurgling in the drain and making something that sounded like words could not have been coincidence.

Douglass quickly looked up. Did the kitchenette light just flicker? He _thought _he saw the light flicker on once for a fraction of a second. _Huh… This must all be getting me pretty jumpy, _thought this man. He clicked on the safety of his handgun before putting it back beneath his trenchcoat, in his shoulder-holster. If he didn't, there was always the chance he might accidentally shoot and kill the next appliance that made so much as the slightest noise. Heather would think him nuts. Or the neighbors next door would maybe think somebody was getting shot again and maybe call the police: People in this building knew what gunfire sounded like.

…

2.

…

_Flick-flicker… _After washing up and a nap, Douglass awoke on the living-room sofa. It was surprisingly dark now—excepting the faint light from the city streetlamps glowing through the sliding glass doors, the fire-escape out there. There was the darkness of night out there.

_Geez, I only meant to sleep an hour, _thought Douglass. Slightly groggy, he turned his wristwatch as so it caught the street-lighting from the outside. _6:36_ read his watch. Of course it was just around sunset. Not that there was a deadline to this case, but he really _hated _wasting time. Just an hour's nap, and he slept nearly all day. No, it _was _all day.

He would just have to make do, having wasted this time. Now was the time for him to get up and moving again. The man slowly rose from the apartment sofa over to his bedroom. Before he went anywhere else, he would be sure to get an extra few boxes of handgun ammunition before leaving. There was the idea that just maybe he could face something that couldn't be killed so easily during this case, just in case. Only then did he leave this apartment, locking the door. Who knows, maybe he would hear from Heather when this case was done? That would be nice.

…

Out in the apartment parking lot, he eased himself into the car's driver's seat. A hard yank pulled the car-door shut. He took a few boxes of handgun rounds in the glove compartment, also putting his backup handgun in there as well: a revolver. Then he turned on this car. The engine revved up with the familiar sound of internal combustion before he pulled the gear-selector lever in reverse. He reversed out of the parking spot with the engine grumbling before turning left to drive out. Streets ought to be clear since it was maybe an hour or so before more of the apartment's residents got off work. The post-work traffic jams likely wouldn't happen for some time.

And the city streets really were largely cleared of traffic. The few blocks he drove so far were almost totally cleared of cars. It was the quiet before the storm. In this case, it would be the quiet before the vehicular traffic storm. When a stop light turned red on him, he stopped the vehicle and realized that he hadn't really eaten anything since eleven o'clock. And look, there so happened to be a diner-type restaurant to the right: a short but wide sort of building with a silvery exterior that shone in the streetlights. Tinted diner-windows at the side showed the view inside, two guys sitting next to the window. One of them looked out into the city night and waved.

Two guys in that diner over there waved at him again. Yes, now Douglass had the definite idea that they were waving at _him. _It was as if they were looking right outside at the vehicular traffic, out into the city night and could see him through the darkened cabin of his car. And now he felt suddenly and very hungry. It was as if he could eat a cold animal's head right out of a refrigerator… They ought not be able to see him at all.

The stoplight went from blood-sunset red to radioactive green. He motored this car slowly up to the turn as so he could go right. A gush of disappointment came when he saw that almost all the parking spots were occupied. What now? No, there was one parking space that so happened to be up close to the entrance into the diner. And it so happened to be angled as so he could pull right in.

A twisted and greasy sort of feeling sort of built up within his midsection, a sort of fear mixed with that gnawing hunger. It was like riding that roller-coaster said to have killed people. A stopping of the car-engine and a release of the door, and he was out of the vehicle. The word _Red's Diner _was written in florescent letters. He walked right of the big glass windows and opened the metal door to go in.

…

Douglas entered the brightness diner…and could not help but smile. He would visit diners earlier in his life. From the time he went to high school to when he took the necessary training courses needed to get his private investigator's license, he would always drop into a diner. And they never changed in all the decades he visited them. A diner always had this kind of look.

This place was lit with incandescent lights that made the place bright even though it was dark outside. It had that hard tiled floor beneath the feet, solid under his shoes. To the left side was the counter. Set up close to the counter were cushion-stools mounted on shiny silvery poles. A person could stop in, have a seat atop the stools and order something quick before heading out to the road again. There was a man in gold-colored work-clothes. They must all work at the same place or something. And they were all drinking coffee. To the left was a young couple dressed in black. They were talking in low tones to each other. Other than that, there was almost no one here.

That did not make sense… The parking lot was damned-well crammed with cars. Almost every spot had vehicles tightly within it. That many cars parked here, this place ought to be crammed walls to doors with customers. Where _was _everybody? Douglass suddenly wanted to get out of here.

_Clickety_… There was the sound of a jukebox radio starting to play on the diner's speakers—the speakers in the ceiling. It began with some echoing guitar strumming. And there was some kind of bass--deep enough to sound like a heart-beat. He heart the man singing…

_Paint your picture…to my front door!_

_Take your sm-i-i-ile _

…_for a ri-i-ide!_

_I awake to a bad dream rising._

_Your kiss_

…_it frames the sky-y-y…_

"What'll it be, mister?" came the woman's voice behind him. Douglass turned quickly, a twinge of pain in his lower back. His eyes came to rest on the source of the voice.

The waitress was a young-looking woman, her pinned-up dark hair a contrast to her milk-pale skin and white uniform. Her white waitress' uniform of skirt and open-neck blouse clung close to all of her body, the flatness of her abdomen and the firm curves of hips—the tight white cloth went only a third of the way down thighs. That was certainly _not _the average waitress' uniform!

An odd thought struck through Douglass' mind. Was it true that waitress' uniforms looked vaguely like that of nurses? Or maybe this waitress' outfit was part of this café's draw. In the background, the song's singer sang on after a brief instrumental:

_Your foot-steps echo _

…_in the hallway!_

_Your picture ha-a-angs above…_

…_the faucet dripping_

…_in the kitchen..._

_It's just the rhythm of the blu-u-ue…_

Douglass managed to turn his focus from the waitress to the menu-board hung above the counter. "I'll take…two egg muffin croissants and the coffee, unless the croissant is only for breakfast." That would be eggs for artery-clogging fat and coffee for high blood-pressure. Was he _asking_ for an earlier death?

"No problem," said the waitress, her voice straight and poised. "Doesn't matter what time it is outside. We're always ready to serve whatever." The young lady then turned to step over behind the counter, moving in that particular and peculiar way a woman moves while wearing such a tight skirt—a wonder it didn't cut blood. That movement made the man's heart flutter. Add the caffeine to the fluttering blood-muscle in the chest, and it was likely to be a heart attack!

According to Heather, death wasn't the end. She ought to know. So if a person died from having a heat-attack meal heaped with greasy animal fat topped with butter, so what? Then again, Heather would have expected him to show some common sense and not act like an old fool. And it was too late now. So the detective had himself a seat atop a circular stool.

_We used to talk about these days!_

_We used to say they'd never happen!_

_But no-w-w that they've happened_

_...it doesn't matter_

…_who-o-o I a-a-am…_

The pretty young waitress was back with that light and beautiful stepping movement of hers—her delicate hands bearing two small white saucers. She landed the saucers atop the formica counter-top. He gave her a twenty-dollar bill, which more than covered the price and the tip. The waitress accepted it and nodded to the booth-seats by the window. "Douglass Carter, there is a message," she said. "Something wants your attention," came her flat voice.

"_What…?_" asked Douglass. The waitress just stared with those big dark eyes of hers. How did she know his name? He'd never been here before—though it wasn't far from the apartment. _Flick-flicker, _went the florescent lights. There was the sound of a huge airplane or something flying overhead, another _flicker _of the lights. Something wasn't right. Then came the sound of an eerie trio of singers crooning some additional lyrics in the song.

_She-e-e doesn't live here…anymore!_

_She-e-e doesn't live here…anymore!_

Never mind that. The man was feeling _h-u-u-ungry. _He grabbed one of those eggy croissants with both hands. Mouth open wide, he chomped into the side of the thing. Doing so absolutely mutilated the sandwich-thing as so parts fell off. Another massive bite, and he entirely consumed the thing. There was a little bit on the saucer that he popped into his mouth as well. The next croissant was just about as easy to devour, his mouth opening and biting three times before it was gone. These egg-sandwiches and such did not put up any sort of resistance. He was looking up to order more. There was the feeling of someone watching him. He also heard that damned song playing…

_I closed my eyes_

…_and waste a wish._

_You know I gave you my ve-e-ry best._

_But it wasn't g-o-o-ood enough._

_You took forever_

…and _a-a-all it could ever be!_

Who or what could it be? He turned himself around on the stool to see who could want to talk to him. Both men were sitting at a window-side booth, both in buttoned work-clothes as if they worked at the same place. Not only did they dress similarly, they had the same kinds of looks: gaunt-looking faces, sallow cheeks and seemed thin in their casual clothes of buttoned shirts and slacks. But while one was swarthy and had a full head of straight gray hair, the other one was darker-skinned and was balding. The balding one seemed a bit younger. Yet both men were staring and waiting. Crooned the song's creepy chorus:

_She doesn't live here…anymore!_

_She doesn't live here…anymore!_

Then came the return of that _Get-the-Hell-out-of-here _feeling. Now he had the idea that those two guys were the source of the feeling—the men he saw through the window before. He couldn't quite get it at first. _Run, _came a thought screaming into his mind. _Run, you old fool! Just beat those feet of here and call that church Heather attends! _He somehow had the idea that those men ought not be here at all, as if they were not from this world. But then there they were…

They weren't going anywhere now. Douglass wasn't going anywhere, either. Unless he talk to them, this situation was going to stay the way it was. Those two men were waiting…for _him._

Fighting fear, Douglass walked right on over and sat next to the man-figure that was balding. He only slowly sat down in making sure that they wouldn't pounce for his neck like animals or try to steal his soul. Then he saw what else was wrong with the two men: Neither of them cast shadows. It was like the lights were shining right through their solid selves and onto the table and seating. Also true was how these two men were staring without blinking, not even breathing as far as he could tell.

"Hey buddy," began the man on the right, the one with a full head of gray hair, "She's stuck. Four dimensions, you know. One of them is just about wrong-o for this sort of thing. Nah, you'd need a machine to get there."

"Then we've got enchiladas!" said the balding one. "They're enchiladas of _truth!_ Nah, I'm making stuff up. You can still learn from what you hear. It's always the right things to do. Isn't that right?"

That's it. These men are psychotic killers, raving mad. He expected the two men to get up and approach him any second. That, or their stomachs were full of meats obtained from the human anatomy. Maybe talking would keep them from jumping him too soon.

"Who are you two?" asked Douglass. "Seems as if people already know who I am. Who are you two? And what do you know about _Heather?_" Even as he said this, the quiver in his voice revealed fear.

"Names don't matter anymore," said the balding one. "But you can call me Richard. Everybody else around this neighborhood seems to have forgotten what some of us look like… Anyway, she's stuck—like I said. And now she's got two shades of reality. Two shades of reality…"

"You can call me Louie, if it still fits," said the gray-haired man. "Don't expect everything to make sense right out. Listen with the back of your head. That's about all we've done before to do again…to do again…" _Flick-flicker! _Both men snapped to stand up.

_That's it. I'm done, _thought Douglass. What'll it be… Will it be butcher's knives? Nah, those thing mutilate. Cannibals like their meat intact. Would it be a spike, an awl? Of course, they couldn't just shoot him. Speaking of shooting, Douglass found himself unable to reach for the pistol in his holster.

The shadowless men just got up to walk out. He turned himself around to see them walk out of this place and go right for the door. _Flick-flicker! _The lights flickered again, another sound of an aircraft flying overhead, a bright flash of light outside the café. The waitress walked by, carrying coffee on a white saucer.

_She doesn't live here…anymore!_

_She doesn't live here…anymore!_

_She doesn't live here…anymore!_

_S-s-she doesn't live here…anymo-o-ore!_


	9. Chapter 9

_Silent Hill—The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 9—End of Day

A rapid-fire clanging of bells shook Cheryl and Heather out of their mid-day malaise. That was the electrified chaos of the period bell ringing—the ringing suddenly followed with the crowd of students and their parade of jumbling footsteps rambled through the hallways of this school. _I'll hold the letter, _thought Heather. Cheryl agreed and handed it over, seeing eather put it in her backpack. The girls then slung backpacks over shoulders and stepped out of this study hall—going into the hall.

"_Witchcraft!_" came a loud whisper as the indoor crowd passed by. They didn't see who gave the whisper. And there were too many people passing to see who it was. Yet the person who made the whisper knew just when to make the comment loud enough in the jumble of sounds in the hallway.

Of course, the _witchcraft _comment could only have been directed at them. Both girls narrowed their eyes. They ought to have been used to the insults by now. And in some way, they were. _Stupid bastards, _thought Cheryl. _If this was like before, we could just think 'em dead or something. It makes me wonder if we've still got that death-power. Wanna give it a go some time?_

Heather smirked. _Yeah, just maybe I'm inclined to agree. We've got something interesting to do in the meanwhile. _The girl then slowed her walk to reach into her right jeans-pocket—the pockets of her jeans' being too tight for more than two fingers, thin as those fingers were. Out came the folded schedule to be unfolded and read. _It says right here we've got Philosophy class next on the third floor. _

_Thump! _"Watch it, jerk!" complained Cheryl, glaring. Heather was doing the same. Part of the hallway crowd had jostled her, nearly knocked them over. Though Cheryl. _Will these bastards ever lighten up?_

_Well, we know them_, responded Heather. They resumed walking, drifted along in the hallway until reaching a square staircase on the left. Upwards they stepped in going with the crowd. On this third floor, it was then an effort to deviate slightly from the crowd and make a left turn. And they walked into this classroom.

…

It was a classroom almost identical to all the other classrooms in this suburban school: three rows of desks in front of a lecturing podium and teacher's desk—a blackboard behind the podium. The desk was far-left, while that podium was at the front and center. Perhaps the only thing that made classrooms different were different books atop the teachers' desks, different teachers and different collections of students. About the students, only six of the twelve seats were occupied. There were just six students… The girls somehow knew that this was all there was. Thought Heather, _Everyone else got here on time except us? _

And the category of _everyone else_ was reference to this especially oddball group. At the far left was a mustached and thick-haired chubby teenage boy-student, dressed in red coveralls and blue work-shirt—white gloves on his hands. Another student was an elegant but rather pasty looking young man who was wearing all black. His shaved head made him look vaguely vampiric. A third boy was dressed in some kind of jump-suit with a space-ship logo on the left chest-pocket. Three girls in ankle-length black dresses sat at the far right. They all stared at Heather and Cheryl.

"Ah!" exclaimed a young female voice from the front of the class, "Who better to know the subject matter of epistemology than these two? Theoretically, you may sit _anywhere_. Yet ethics and customs dictate otherwise. We sit upon the seat-portions of desks here. You are to at least be thanked for making your presence known. Let us see you continue your value of interest to the class."

Backpacks shoved under their desk-seats, both girls sat down to look at the smiling image of the philosophy teacher, a petite and pretty sort of young lady—her slim self dressed in the black skirt and white blouse typical of female teachers here, though her maybe too-tight skirt seemed a bit higher on her thighs to allow more freedom of movement. Her cream-toned complexion was a contrast to her silken night-colored hair. Big dark eyes looked out from that too-young and perky face of hers. Come to think of it, the philosophy teacher looked an awful lot like the senior-grade students of this school.

It wouldn't make sense to have a teenager teach philosophy… That is, unless the teenager so happened to have a college degree and was eighteen—the legal age of adulthood. _Miss _Matsuithe philosophy teacher, actually went to college at the age of eleven. It took her three years to get her undergraduate degree. She had to wait a few more years until any school would let her teach, though. Now here she was, looking at least five years too young and with an education just about ten years older than herself…

"Well now! That introduces today's subject-matter: that of _epistemology_," declared the too-young teacher. She did a half-spin to face the board in a whirl of graceful movement and a head-swish of shoulder-length dark hair. She began talking and writing at the same time. "Epistemology…" _Tap-tap—tap-p-p…_went the chalk. "It is a…study…of…human knowledge…" And she wrote the rest of that sentence. Read the board, _Epistemology is the study of human knowledge and the limits thereof. _Facing the class again, she said, "What does this mean to you?"

Cheryl shrugged just before a trace of knowledge came up in her brain. The teacher looked at her. So she answered. Saying, "Like, it's the study of reality, right? Is reality in our brains, or is it based on some kind of external idea?" She picked up Heather's thought praising her. _Go ahead. You may as well say something, too._

Heather therefore added to that. "Then comes all kinds of way-weird ideas. Like, we only understand this stuff called reality by using our eyeballs, our ears, our fingers… Using senses and stuff. It's all picked up by our brains." The words came easily. "So, like, how do we know if reality is _real? _What if reality was all a loopy kinda trick to fool with our eyes and ears and fingers?"

The young teacher gave a quick nod. "An excess of _likes _and pronouns such as _stuff, _but the principal holds true." Speaking to the rest of this small class, she asked, "What _if _reality was merely a 'loopy trick,' so to speak? All of reality could be a dream-stage set up by a demon, or it could be a chunk of an alternate universe set up by trans-dimensional alien beings for all we know. But limited to senses of reality, we only know what we know through our senses."

That kid in the space-suit sort of outfit raised his right hand. To that, the young philosophy teacher gestured towards him. "Yes, what's your response to that statement?" she asked. "You don't like the idea of relying only on human senses?" She moved over to the desk and sat perched atop it, crossed her legs—one knee over the other—while the student responded. Cheryl thought they were nice legs, smooth and athletic-looking at the same time.

Came the response of the boy-student in the space-suit getup, "But humans do not just depend on five senses. We have science and technology. We have machines can analyze materials and physics. And there are computers and telescopes. Humans are not just dumb cavemen who just see things and hear things. Science helps."

The petite philosophy teacher sitting atop the desk only widened her vibrant smile smile. She suddenly raised a dainty hand, holding the chalk. "Ah! But are not tools of science and technology just other objects of reality, other means interpreted by the human senses? Scientific instruments, at the current level of technology require eyes and ears to take in data.

"Also true is how the results of scientific experiments are just other figments of this so-called reality. So you go into an astrophysics laboratory and use all the tools and devices of science and technology to understand the universe. Who is to say that the objects of science are _real, _too? What if that theoretical demon-generated alternate reality _also made the machines of science? _Therein lies a furthering of the truth…or the illusion!" She popped off of the desk. "_Everything _could be an illusion! Chairs, desks, the floor, the view outside… Fundamentally, there is no way of telling."

_Flick-flicker _went the lights. The girls glanced up at the ceiling. As with being jostled in the hallway, they had the idea that the act was deliberate. Someone was happening. It wasn't anything good.

…

In the dark place beneath the school, the janitors were doing something with a big machine behind a rusty metal door. The noisy machine-room itself had walls made of lead, a dull grayish-black sort of room—a single sun-colored light-bulb overhead barely making for light enough to see by. This place was easily the size of a living room, yet the big metal electromechanical machine filled up most of this place with all of that heat and noise. Pipes went from the machine and into the floor, bolted down with hexagonal bolts while thick cables went to the walls. This was indeed a machine-room dominated with the heat and churning-vibration sounds of the big machine. _Flicker…_went the light bulb.

Then it came, fading into reality: a shadow. This shadow was like some others of its kind in this town. It was not flat and on a surface. No, this was one of those shadows that walked upright and had depth—a being. The shadow had all the depth and features of a human being in profile: two arms and two legs attached to a torso, with a head on top. This shadow-being used its arms to do something to the machine. That done, the shadow-being faded out of reality again.

The six-foot figure in the rabbit costume was standing here all this time, its silvery skeletal face-mask gleaming in the low light. For a few seconds, the figure in the rabbit costume regarded this scene, nodding three times before fading out again. It understood what happened. It also understood what was being done, what was happening. That was because the six-figure in the bunny suit understood things that people cannot.

…

2.

…

It was soon time enough for school to end for today. Students in were steadily waiting poised inside this three-story suburban building. Sunset-colored school busses waited outside. A minute…a second…and the bells exploded with ringing. The mad rush of children suddenly gushed from the front doors and from the left-side door, even more coming from the right, most of them headed for the busses. They would have come leaping out of the windows if they could.

It was with this mad group of teenagers that Cheryl and Heather emerged into bright daylight. There was the usual jostling and noise as the mass made their way to the busses. They noticed a boy glancing up at the sky while a girl walking with him giggled. Another few boys were laughing it up. They were staring a pair of girls, giving elbow nudges to each other—as if hey were all in on some kind of dirty inside joke. Cheryl sighed annoyingly, Heather doing the same. _Boys, _thought Cheryl.

Heather thought, _It_ _makes me wonder… Are boys the same way in _every _time period? Or maybe we're back in Hell and they're our demonic torturers or something. Yeah, how the Hell do other girls put up with them?_

_It's not much of a concern if you're only after one thing with boys, _mentally responded Cheryl. _And don't they ever worry about getting pregnant and stuff? We know… _

_Maybe we ought not call what we had _pregnancythought Heather. _I still think of it as some kind of disease. When that thing was growing inside me, it was like I couldn't get out of that nightmare. Glad that Claudia-bitch ate it, though._

_Yeah, I remember that too, _thought Cheryl. _To think the worshippers _wanted _us to give birth to those things? Who the Hell could ever think something like that was good for the world? No way am I ever gonna have something growing inside my body ever again. Who knows what'd it look like? Our insides are probably contaminated for life._

Heather glanced up at the bright blue sky above, clouds high above. _Who knows, indeed, _she mentally agreed. This part of the crowd was now coming up on their busses. They always rode the one numbered eighteen. It was _eighteen_, indeed--that number again… Well, whatever. They went up and in.

…

Inside the bus, the girls were sitting together in the seats closest to the front. They had their backpacks in their laps now and were looking lazily out the window. Thought Heather, _So that's what high school is like, huh? You learn a little, goof off a lot and end up with all kinds of stupid stuff said about you._

_Yeah, who needs punishment in the afterlife when we've got this, _responded Cheryl. She looked into Heather's eyes. _It almost makes us want to go back to peaceful streets of that town. Or better yet, we ought to bring some of these assholes with us and let the town do its worse to them. Silent Hill ain't what it used to be, but stuff still happens there._

"Hey, witch-babes! Why do you ride the bus?" asked a sneering teenage boy in a football jersey and jeans—his hair cut crew-cut style. He was seated back and to the left. A red-haired girl in short-shorts and tight leotard-top hung on his left arm and was leaning on one of his shoulders. He glanced at her before turning back to the girls. "Yeah, why are _you _two riding with us? I mean… What, your broomsticks are in the shop or something?"

Cheryl clenched her hands into fists…but forced herself to put on a smile—tight as that smile was _I really ought to think some bad thoughts about 'em, _she thought to Heather. _When he keels over, maybe they'll explain it away as a heart attack. _Staring at the teenage boy, Cheryl said, "I'd say something about broomsticks, but we know where you shoved the last one."

The girl hanging on the boy's arm suddenly clutched his arm a little tighter. And that smirk on the boy's face wilted. His eyebrows furrowed. It was getting up to around that point where he was fully realizing that he was being insulted. Given the giggles from other seats, he was being insulted _badly._

"Meanwhile, your girlfriend really looks like she's into wood too, not that you've got any," added Heather. "Or are we thinking of something battery-operated? Well, since you can't score touchdowns with her anymore."

Continued Cheryl, "That's because, like, steroids do _terrible_ things to male potency. Of course, you've probably taken so many hits on the head that you probably don't even know what the word _potency_ means."

"Unless _you're_ the one using up all the batterie," went Cheryl. "Come on, can tell us. Is that cocky attitude of yours making up for something you're missing? There ought to be some kind of shop where you can sort of strap extra stuff on. There are replacements for missing arms… Why not the same for what _you _don't have?"

While the teenage boy in the football jersey sat in open-mouthed at this tirade, the red-haired girl in the mini-skirt had a look of rigor-mortis on her face. A person could see all sorts of emotions scampering through their minds. Part of the emotional mix was all kinds of burning anger. All other kinds of emotions included feelings of death-blows to a feeling of confidence. Not only were these two being insulted, they were being insulted in front of their public: the high-school public. Funny thing was how the pain from these verbal barbs did not quite register yet. Like gunshot wounds, a person did not know that he or she is injured until after the fact.

Finally, the red-haired girl in shorts and tight top shook herself out of shock. Then came her shrieks. "_You fucking_ _witch-bitches! Take that back! Devil-worshipping lesbos! You…!_" The girl's face was soon just about as red in tone as her hair.

This somehow prompted the teenage boy to further anger. He had his own fists clenched. He certainly had some kind of violence in mind. And to that end, he began to stand up despite the erratic swaying movement of this school bus. Anger flashed in his blue eyes.

Both Heather and Cheryl then fixed him with blank-faced stares. _We've just about had it with assholes like you, _thought the girls. _You and your cocky attitude, thinking you have a right to spray everybody with your testosterone… _From there, the hatred in their minds deepened.

Things…_began to happen. _The indoor light in the bus' cabin _flickered _on…then off—though the driver did not hit the switch. That teenage boy stopped moving. He now had a terrible, terrible look on his face—which now looked pasty pale. It was the look of someone stabbed in the abdomen, the pain so awful or awesome that he could barely make a squeal of sound. Blood trickled from his nose as he sat down. _Flick-flicker…_went the bus-lights.

"_The witches are doing stuff!_" shouted someone. "_Did you see that!_ _Get 'em off the bus!_" More shouts of that sort began to resonate through this vehicle. Everyone knew _the witches _were: _the _witches. Of all the members of the local school population with hobbies in the occult, only two were widely recognized as being able to do things with just their minds alone. One such thing being done was the bloody pain and suffering of the teenage boy who was keeling over and bleeding.

There was a hiss of the bus' air brakes. Then the big grumbling diesel engine went quiet. _Everyone _went quiet. The bus-driver then turned the mechanical lever that opened the doors. "Cheryl… Heather… _Get out!_ I can't have you two doing crazy things to people! And I don't care if you _do _talk to your parents. Talk to _his _parents and tell them how you beat him up."

"_Beat him up?_" yelled the girls together. Heather shook her head. "Like, how the Hell could we beat him up? We're _wa-a-ay_ over here on this side of the bus. That jerk is over there, and he's way bigger than us!"

"Besides, we'd also have to explain that a star of the football team was beaten up by girls about eighty pounds lighter than him," added Cheryl. "Explain _that _to his parents. They'd be _really _proud. Aww, are we hurting his masculine pride?"

There were some especially nasty words behind the bus-driver's clenched lips. Instead, the lady thrust her pointing right hand to the door out. Of course, the driver knew that the girls were right. But the driver also knew about being right in this argument: Those twins Heather and Cheryl, there was something not right about both of them.

Both girls picked up their backpacks. Now there was just the idling of the engine as they stepped through the aisle. All the teenagers on the bus were extremely quiet. Small animals in the presence of something larger and predatory acted the same way. "Hope you choke on your own stupidity," commented Heather. The bus driver gagged and coughed, and someone on the bus screamed in fear while the two girls stepped off.

…

That sun-colored school bus veered and swerved down the suburban road in a roar of diesel engine and a rumbling of big rubber tires. Cheryl stood with hands on hips, her eyes on the vehicle speeding away. _That went pretty well, _she thought to Heather. _It makes you think they're scared of us and stuff. _And she kept looking while the bus went around a corner. _They sure are Hell-bent in getting away from us! Looks like we're using manual transportation._

_Well, whatever, like we're not far from the house anyway, _communicated Heather. They began walking along the sidewalk—along a tree-lined suburban street _Maybe now people will know better than to mess with us. But is it me, or are we getting stronger? We've hated bastards before without stuff happening. We…_ There was a sudden swath of cold air.

A sort of sickening dread…_closed over Heather and Cheryl. "Ow-w-w," went Heather. Both girls slowly collapsed to their knees, hands to their abdomens as pain and sickness took them and filled their bodies. It felt as if something was twisting around inside them. And the day was darkening. The once-bright day seemed to dim. Bright green tree-leaves became dark and gray. Beneath their knees, this pavement felt cold and wrong. This was all wrong. Everything felt sickening and twisted. _

_Then everything…_faded back into bright suburban normalcy. Except now there was a metal bench by the side of the sidewalk. Sitting on the metal bench were two men in work-clothes: buttoned blue work-shirts, sturdy slacks and heavy work shoes. Both men had a lean and square-jawed look. One had a slightly tanned complexion and a full head of gray hair, the other with a darker complexion and balding.

"You young ladies wouldn't mind talking to strangers, would you?" asked the one with a full head of gray hair, sitting on the right side of the bench. The girls turned to face the two men on the bench. "We're not offering you candy or anything…unless you're into that kind of thing. Now before you ask, we're telling you that we've been places—though nothing is going to get you ready for all of this."

"Douglass worries about you two in golden ways," said the balding one. "He doesn't say it, but there he went. People's words have the background of emotions. It's something at the back of the mind. Keep it at the back of your mind, right?"

Heather thought to Cheryl, _Who are these weirdoes? And what the Hell do they know about Douglass? _She made eye-contact with the gray-haired one and said aloud, "Look, old man. We don't make a habit of talking to strangers. And we don't talk to old people who sit on park benches in the middle of neighborhoods."

Cheryl added, "For all we know, you'll want to drug us up and take us away or something. But don't even try it. All of these house around here have windows looking outside. And we can defend ourselves."

The tan-skinned gray-haired man put up both hands. "Look, baby. Don't put the hate on the messengers. We're not the ones you're after—before or after. If anything, you ought to save your hate for everybody else in this crumbling dump of a so-called town."

"What do you mean, _dump?_" asked Heather. Left hand on a hip, she made an open-handed gesture with her right. "This town looks pretty sweet and decent to me. The people are sorta on the creepy side for being so neat and perfect, but they're otherwise really neat. It's a Hell of a lot more nice-looking than the city."

Then came the response of the darker-skinned man on the left side of the bench. "You don't understand. What you think is the same as what you see. You can't see the real color. It's all a show over what happened."

The tan-skinned gray-haired man on the right side of the bench gave a shrug of his shoulders. "What he's saying is, don't think what you see is what you get. Looks aren't everything. What happens when a guy says that a girl has a 'nice personality?' Same thing for this town. It's got a 'nice personality.' But you're not seeing it the way we can."

"I'm sorry… I'm _sorry!_" said the balding man on the left side of the bench. "We tried to help you both," said the one on the left. "There were too many things to worry about. We can only go so fast. Then we can only go slow for a little while."

"He's right. He's on the left, but he's still right," said the gray-haired man on the right side of the bench. "There's this song we're thinking about. Those songs are always thinking, you know. Just pay attention sometimes. Pay attention…" He shook his head. "Damn… Just pay attention…"

And he just kept shaking his head as both men began to fade out of this existence. It was like watching a spotlight slowly turning down before turning off. They were here and slowly going away. There was a cold blast of wind and a darkening of the sky. That bench they were sitting on turned to one of rust and moldy concrete before it disappeared right along with the_m. _

They were gone. There was no longer a bench there. There was nothing there but the grass, the ground and the breeze. The light of day shone innocently and birds began chirping again. No, nothing happened here at all.

Heather bent over at the waist, both hands on her knees—her eyes focused on the grass. Cheryl knelt down on both knees to feel the grass where the bench's concrete supports had been—_should _have been. "_Whoa!_' exclaimed Cheryl. _It's like there was something ice-cold. _She stood up next to Heather.

_So they really were_ _here, _communicated Heather as she straightened her back . _But…who are they, I wonder. What do they want? Do they have something to do with this town? Something is going on. _


	10. Chapter 10

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 10—Dream a Little Nightmare

The twin girls in jeans and sleeveless tops, high-school backpacks over their shoulders, walked the rest of the way back home—slow winds blowing along the suburban streets, trees at the sides of the roads. And they felt odd all the while, walking through this clean-cut, luxurious suburban neighborhood of manicured front lawns, three-story houses and pricey town-cars. Huge trees made for shade on even this moderately warm day. It was warm, not at all as hot as it was in the city. This was _not _their neighborhood, not their home. Yet they still knew their way through this strange neighborhood for the same reason that they ended up in this reality in the first place.

They stepped along the flagstone-paved path that went around to the right-side of the house. _Call this a house? This is more like a mini-mansion, _thought Cheryl. Because of the size of the house, it really was quite a ways around to the far side of this suburban residence.

_Yeah, houses like this, they're called something like that. What'd some guy call 'em? McMansions or something, thought _Heather as she unshouldered her book-bag and fumbled around for the house-key… _Ah, here we go, _she communicated to Cheryl. _Huh… I'm still getting used to having memories that don't belong to me. We've got house-keys. It probably means that neither of the parents are home. _

_Yeah, you'd think a ritzy neighborhood like this would have the Mom stay home and stuff to raise the kids, _mentally responded Cheryl. _Oh… That's right. In this reality, we had a nanny up until we were about sixteen. Don't ask me how I know._

_I won't, if you don't, _communicated Heather. Thumb and forefinger grasping the familiar flat key, there was the familiar feeling of the metal sliding into the doorknob's locking mechanism. She did the same for the dead-bolt locks—sliding the key into the house-lock mechanism and giving a turn. They were then able to give a turn to the doorknob and open it up, the door itself heavy as metal but with wood paneling. _Voila!_

…

Stepping inside brought them to the big kitchen. "_We're ho-o-ome!_" they sang out in chorus. No one responded. Of course no one would respond: The only residents of this huge house were the twin-girls and the parent-figures. The house-cleaning staff came in three times a week, but they were not here today, not supposed to be. While the mother-figure usually attended social events and the father-figure was often away on business, it was usually just Cheryl and Heather—who only now got home.

But still, they expected an answer. There was the vague feeling of _somebody _being here—_that _unspoken and barely detectible idea. It was that sort of feeling a person got from walking into a room where there was someone hidden out-of-sight behind a door or in the next room. Yet there was no response. Maybe they were just being paranoid...

Well, never mind that, then. The girls made their way over to the counter-top at the right side of the kitchen. Such a long counter-top was nominally for a team of servants that assisted the chef—whenever a chef was hired for a celebration of some sort. But it was also here for when Mom and Dad wanted to tope it up a little with a little something from the wine cellar.

_You know what…? After we do this freaky homework, I say we get bent. This reality isgetting to me, _mentally declared Cheryl as they both sat down atop the cushions. _This_ _alternate history stuff is, like, really far-out stuff. If we don't get some kind of relaxation and fun soon, I think we're gonna end up more nuts than we already are. _

_I hear that, my dear twin from an alternate reality, _agreed Heather. _About this alternate history, it's pretty hard to get over the fact that Canada_ _nuked part of the US_ _Midwest_ _in this reality. It's a wonder it didn't lead to the end of the world… That is, unless the end of the world happened and this is all some kind of elaborate joke run by demons, space-aliens or something like that._

_Now you're starting to think of that philosophy class,_ added Cheryl. _Speaking of philosophy, that's the only other subject we've got homework for—a nothing-little assignment of ten pages. Huh, and I thought this high-school business would be harder. We read more than that for kicks._

_Well, so long as those kicks are about the occult and other stuff like that, _communicated Heather. There was a _r-r-r-ringing _of the telephone. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, the other girl also giving a jump of surprise. _The damned thing nearly scared me off my stool. And we don't scare easily. _The telephone rang yet again—a telephone mounted on the kitchen wall right of this counter. Funny thing, there were two other telephones on the same line elsewhere in the kitchen. None of them rang…

_I'll get it, _communicated Cheryl before bouncing off the stool, feet to the floor before stepping over to the telephone itself. "_Ach-hem,_" she went to clear her throat, making sure that her voice still worked before picking up the handset. Telepathy was cool, but it made a person feel a little lazy about using the vocal chords and mouth to talk. "Hello?" she asked.

First there was a hissing of static. It sounded like a poorly tuned radio, the sounds full of tortured electronic squeals and bits of miscellaneous voices in the distance. And was that sound of fire? There was that low rumbling roar and the sound of hot air fluttering and blowing. Yes, that was definitely the sound of fire. It somehow brought to mind machines on fire—the flames flowing around and upwards on the metal casing. Strange machines were on fire somewhere…

"_Imposters!_ _You interlopers!_" rasped the old man's voice, shouting over the sounds of the flames. "_We-e-e don't need you! Things were going just…fine before you appeared! Who the Hell needs the truth? You horny little sinful slut!"_

A look of disgust on her face, Cheryl pulled the telephone away from her right ear. Heather sensed the annoyance and distaste in Cheryl's mind and also heard the loud words from the telephone receiver. It was that quiet in this kitchen—especially since the refrigerator's cooling unit was off. Heather then walked over to here and accepted the telephone receiver.

"_It doesn't matter to which one I talk!_" yelled the voice. There was a wail of electronic static and madness. "_You're both the same! You are whoresome! Those people you call parents certainly need to have psychiatrists look into your brains. Yeah, and the shrink ought to use a hand-saw and ice-pick to do that! He ought to open up your slutty head and scoop out all the bad!_"

"Who the _Hell_ is this!" demanded Heather. "Anyway, our sex life is nobody else's business! How about _your _sex life, huh? Maybe this how you get your jollies, you perv! You like calling girls to call 'em all kinds of nasty names. There are ways of tracing calls, you know."

"_Shut up, you lying trollop!_" countered the angry old man's voice. Another wash of electronic interference temporarily drowned out the call. "_I hope you see the accursed truth of all this soon enough. And when you do, I hope to be the ones to cut you bodies open and reach inside your whoresome selves to…_ _Hey! What are you doing! You can't hang up on me-e-e! You little…_" _Click!_

Cheryl had pressed the button on the telephone console. Heather gave her the phone to put back on the hook. Both girls wiped their hands on the thighs of their jeans, both their faces with looks of distaste. _Ew! That has to be one of the grossest phone calls we've ever gotten, _thought Heather. _Makes me wanna take a long hot shower just to get away from the filth._

Heather shuddered. Thought, _Which_ _is worse, horny phone calls from a pervert or being groped by a stranger that doesn't say anything? At least in our time, we have caller I.D. Ask for that sort of technology in this time period, and people won't know what we're talking about—as helpful as it'd be. _She went over to the kitchen's refrigerator and opened up. _There's got be some kind of soft drink in here to get the nasty taste of that freak out of our mouths… _The girl pulled the door open and stood there with the door open. One good thing about not being too tall was that there was no need to bend over as much. _Wow, this really _must _be an alternate reality. Get a gander at these freaky soda brands! _

_Ew, What kind of name is "Snozz" for a brand of soda? Sounds like snot mixed with motor-oil or something, _came Cheryl's thought. She could read the soda brands through Heather's mind, Heather's eyes on the fridge. _That stuff labeled "Tab" looks interesting. Sure beats "Splash" brand, which sounds more like carbonated salt-water. We oughtta try it._

_Sure thing, _responded Heather. She reached deep into the refrigerator for four cans of the stuff. These in hand, Heather went back to her seat next to the other girl and pulled open a can before opening the books of the homework. The soda can made a crisp snaring sound as she popped the pull-tab on the thing—but without the fizz. _Huh, this stuff seems a little flat. _

_Thanks, _thought Cheryl in reaching for one of her own cans and pulling it open. _Hey, mine's a little flat, too. Anyway… _Her lips puckered and her throat flexed as she drank the liquid. The girl was thinking, _Here's_ _an idea. You read the philosophy homework. I'll read the history homework. That way, we'll know both subjects at the same time and just communicate to each other the info when the teacher asks. _

_Cool idea, _responded Heather. Her eyes went to the philosophy textbook. What the Hell was the chapter they supposed to read again…? She checked her notebook. Yes, it was that section on epistemology—that stuff about how human brains really don't know what reality is. Something about this chapter was a little freaky. It also made things interesting. As Heather read, she could sense Cheryl reading words into her own mind as one would hear whispers in the distance or something.

This chapter on epistemology was more about possible theories of reality. According to some ancient guy named Descartes, there's really no way of telling if reality _is _reality. It could all be a cosmic joke being played by a demon. The demon would put up a grand illusion for the human mind to wander around in: fooling the eyes, fooling the ears, even tricking taste, touch and smell. That would be a really kick-ass kind of virtual reality…even if demons ran the show. _Kick-ass… _"_Hmm-hmm_…" giggled Heather.

"_Hmm_… Ha-ha!" went Cheryl in turn. The girl then slapped her right hand over her own mouth. _Oops…! Still, this is good stuff for just soda. The chapter, the soda… Hell, it's all good. _There was a pause in which she had herself another drink from the can of soda. _It's pretty good for flat soda. _

_Yeah, especially soda with a really far-out name, _added Heather. _If we find a way back to our own realities, we oughtta bring some of this with us. We could patent it and sell it to one of those crazy soda-bottling companies._

_Sell it for a million-million bucks, _agreed Cheryl. "Hmm-hmm… _Hic!_" _Oops!_ She lifted the can and squinted at the label. _I'm feeling a wee bit tipsy, in fact. Wait a sec… Is million-million even a real number? Why not?_

Responded Heather, _It will be! Just slap that number on our checks and give it over. Well, we're getting distracted from our homework-studies, aren't we? _Cheryl nodded, the thought of her agreement echoing in mind. So they went back to reading.

In walked both of the parents. There was the tall guy in the suit, the father-figure. And standing next to him was the Alessa-lookalike, the mother figure. Both girls were so relaxed that they didn't notice. "Good afternoon, girls!" said the tall father-figure. "Well, it's nearly time to take you to the doctor. You're just about ready."

"_What doctor?_" asked the girls in unison. They were genuinely surprised at the mention of doctor. Yet the word _psychiatrist _echoed through their minds mind. Along with it came those extra memories that were not hers, but still coming to mind

"What the…? No, we can't go! We're not crazy!" insisted Cheryl. "There's nothing wrong with us. We get along just fine." _Heather, something's not right. We can't go. In this world, there's something about us being crazy—borderline institutionalization. _

The mother-figure stood here, her sleeveless dress leaving arms bare. The dress itself clung to her long and elegant figure, making her look _very _good for someone who had two kids nineteen years ago. A toss of her dark-haired head, the elegantly beautiful woman regarded them with a seemingly sympathetic face. Her wonderful and lightly sweet voice flowed from her throat and lips to make for words that were nearly hypnotizing…

"Oh, do come now, children. It is for the sake of your mental health. You have such _strange_ notions carried about in mind. Think of it… What talk is it when one speaks of a Hellish 'Other World' full of strange creatures and distorted settings? Also, what of your wrong-headed religious ideals? Since when is reincarnation an acceptable religious doctrine?" Alessa closed her large dark eyes and gently shook her head, opened her eyes again. "No… You require medical attention."

Thought Heather. _What kind of bigoted, narrow-minded crap is this? _"Now listen. My sister and I believe in some things, so what?" said the girl on the left stool. "We're able to get up every morning to go to school and stuff. It's not like we're sacrificing priests with copper stakes to the chest or drawing weird circles with blood and… You know what I mean. No… You know what? It shouldn't matter what we believe in. We believe what we…believe…" A shake of her head, and she tried to speak more clearly. It was hard to sound angry and confident right now. _Something's not right…_

_Oh damn. I know. It's that feeling of everything being a little off-key, _communicated Cheryl, _like we've taken a swig of whiskey on an empty stomach or something_. She voiced the words and realized her mistake halfway through. "What about freedom of religions? That's the way things are supposed to be run in this country. It's a right…" _Oh wow… Are you feeling this, too?_

_Yeah, just hold on, _responded Heather. _I'll help argue, but my throat is really dry right now. Maybe a swallow of soda will help? _She reached back atop the counter for her soda—as flat as it was. Realization struck: Why would a supposedly unopened can of soda be flat? _The soda was flat…thought we just opened the cans._

Cheryl sensed Heather's thought. _It's as if somebody poked a hole in it with…a God-damned syringe and left the hole… _She swallowed. Yes, her throat was feeling dry too. It was likely a side-effect of something, of a drug. _Yeah, somebody slipped us a mickey! Right in our soda-pop! No wonder why we're having a hard time showing these parents up. _

2.

An angry look on her face, dark blue eyes flaring, Heather clenched her hands into fists and tried to stand up. She really tried, making her best attempt at being strong… But her legs felt as if they were not a part of her, her body beginning to lose feeling. The numbness seemed to radiate out from her abdomen and was taking her strength. She was able to stand for just about three seconds. "_What gives you the right…?_" The rest of her words were lost in a sigh.

That was it. Just saying those words took almost the last of her strength. Both girls felt themselves falling to collapse, eyesight blotted over with those pain-filled blotches of darkness. Somehow, the girls fell themselves to their knees and kept her upper body upright by bracing hands and arms against the floor. _Don't black out, _she demanded to herself. _Don't black out. Don't black out…_ Cheryl was feeling just about as disoriented. Where and how things were going, she didn't know, collapsing next to her, putting an arm across Heather's back. _Come on, we've gotta stay conscious. Who knows what these two people'll do to us if we let that stuff knock us out? Maybe some kind of ritual. We've both had it with rituals…_

And right now, it was getting harder to…_stay conscious. _The darkness closing…_over their sight was already dark enough. The afternoon sunlight…_shining through the windows was getting to darken. Everything was darkening. _We've gotta fight it, _insisted Cheryl. _I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna let some kind of date-rape drug put me out. Can't let that bitch win!_

Something faded into view, some kind of tall animal that didn't look quite right. "_Blorp!_" came a strange sort of belch sound from the walking creature. The girls tilted their heads upwards and forwards though their necks felt too weak to hold up their heads anymore, looking across a blurry ant tilted kitchen floor. It was a glimpse up gave an awful view of something that ought not even exist, resembling a walking bag of meat with too-long hairy arms and chest—a chest with a big belly large enough to swallow a kid whole. Two of its lumpy legs were used for walking while a third leg dragged limply and trailed some kind of slimy yellow ichor. Maybe that third limb was a tail. Or maybe it was a different kind of organ altogether.

_We can't let that thing touch us, _insisted Cheryl's frightened thought. And here it was, coming closer. The girls tried helping each other in getting away. All they could do was crawl. Their heads were just so full of…_dizziness…_and their throats were just so dry… It was getting hard to breathe and get enough air in their lungs. They felt as if they were dying. They collapsed sideways and tried pulling themselves across the floor even as the walking meat-creature closed in. And their…_eyes closed. _A snatch of song came to mind: _It's just i-i-infinitely late at night… _For them, things faded off into darkness.

"Good thing they're on the light and petite side, like little girls that'll never grow up," commented the father figure. He bent down to grab one of the girls by the ankles. "Their eyes are still open. Makes me think they're not fully unconscious." So grabbing, he dragged her limp body across the smooth kitchen floor—her arms trailing along—until coming to the kitchen entrance near the living room. Then he came back for the other girl lying on the kitchen floor and did the same, grabbing her legs by the ankles and dragged her across the kitchen floor as well. Soon both girls were side by side next to the rear kitchen door. For good measure, he reached down to stroke their eyelids shut.

Alyssa, the mother figure, opened the living-room door to reveal two wheelchairs. The wheelchairs rolled over to where the girls were lying on the floor. "Limp as dolls," he said. "Well, I can't complain…much. If they were as dead as everybody else, they'd probably get to be stiff and harder to handle."

"You _do _realize they can hear you…" said Alyssa. "They do possess a higher level of awareness. It is one that no bodily tranquilizer can sedate. As such, it would do to temper your tongue hereabouts… Do you yet comprehend?"

"Do I understand? You betcha," answered the tall father figure. "Alright, here we go with Cheryl…or Heather… Whichever is which." He began to wheel the first girl back through the kitchen and out the door. Alyssa summoned a female nurse—the nurse grabbing the handles of the wheelchair and pushing this other wheelchair out to follow. Never mind the fact that this nurse had a strange lump growing out of the back.

…

They were vaguely aware of being slumped in the back seat of a van. Their own bodies still felt numb and distant, but at least they were conscious...maybe. Everything still had a weak and dark sort of feel to it. This vehicle they were in, it was some kind of special van that must have been designed just for transporting the unconscious. There was this vague feeling of straps across their thighs and abdomens, a third strap going across their shoulders and near their necks, the feeling of something soft beneath them. This wasn't an ambulance. Ambulances only had room for single stretchers—not two people side-by side. Side-by-side was exactly how the girls were strapped in

_Are we there yet? That asshole closed our eyes, and I can't open mine, _went Heather's thoughts. _How about you? Any luck where he's really taking us? They said _doctor_, but what kind of doctor? What if the doctor isn't even human? _

_Wouldn't be surprised if any of that was true, _responded Cheryl's thought. _Where the Hell are we going, really? We've been riding for a while. Well, it's hard to tell if it's been a while—being drugged and all. Funny thing. We can't move our bodies, but our minds are still fine as anything. Or at least I think so._

Heather thought, _Yeah, can't move, can't open our eyes… It's like being trapped inside our own bodies. We're just running around inside our own brains. Now I know how paralyzed people feel. We could try to scream and stuff, but nobody would hear us but us… Hold on a sec._

_Huh… As if I've got a choice, _quipped the other girl. _Wait… Was that "Hold on" comment a joke? Can't hold on if I can't move my arms. Jeez, this whole unconscious-body thing is getting annoying._

Annoyed as she was, annoyed as both girls were, they nevertheless stopped communicating. This van was slowing down. A slowed left turn, and they felt their bodies shifting. The vehicle maneuvered into a parking lot or something. Engine off, there was the sound of the back doors opening. "Here we are, girls! It's time to keep you both feeling normal!" cheered the father-figure.

They could hear the straps being undone before they felt a slight alleviation of restriction on their bodies. Hands grabbed them—the quivering but unusually strong hands of nurses. Then came the wheelchairs again. At least these _nurses_ didn't sound as if they were breathing through mutant mouths: these nurses seeming normal—though both girls knew that they were not. There were no normal people here.

There was a feeling of being pushed along this parking lot. The wheels vibrated and thrummed in rolling along the pavement. Then they were pushed up a slight ramp and indoors, the wheels of the wheelchairs went smoothly along carpeted floors. They were now in the carpeted offices of the psychiatrist—those traces of ghost-memory indicating that they would be wheeled straight in.

…

They could feel the drug beginning to wear off, able to feel their bodies again. Eyes open, Cheryl and Heather looked up at the beige and dimly lit ceiling of the psychiatrist's therapy room. They were both on couches, lying on their backs and looking up. _About time, _thought Cheryl.

Heather spoke to the psychiatrist. "You know, Doc… We ought to make you dead for letting our so-called 'parents' do that to our bodies. Drugs and stuff. It's like being chemically raped. No… You know, we ought to kill you. Then we'll sue you for lots of money until your whole family goes broke!"

"You've got a lot of money, too," came Cheryl's voice. "It would be a real shame to lose it all. Let's see… It's a man in an office with two drugged-up nineteen-year-old girls. Wat would a jury think?"

"Please stop that. You are being impolite," came the unctuous but familiar voice of a certain blond-haired man, well-dressed in the jacket-and-tie outfit of someone in wealth—beige pressed pants creased and neat. He was seated behind the polished oak desk, and what a seat it was: a cushioned affair more worthy of a business executive than a man of medicine. "It was not my decision to have you sedated. Besides, that so-called jury you speak of would not be a concern. The laws of this world make wide allowances for the treatment of the mentally ill…given the circumstances. Oh, the laws of this world… If only you knew." As soon as he said that, something invisible gave a laugh.

"_We'll show you some laws!_" said the girls simultaneously. They've had enough. All of this being strapped down and drugged up, it was too much. They hopped up off of the couch and began to stride for the psychiatrist—who looked _especially _familiar: a formally dressed blond-haired man, thirtyish-looking and with small glasses. They met in that _other _town. But there was something different about this man.

He had a book atop the desk. Standing behind him was the figure in the rabbit suit. Suddenly, the girls felt _especially _dizzy. "Ah, but _these _are the laws of _this _world," declared the familiar-looking man. He watched as Heather and Cheryl collapsed to the floor. Everything blurred as the lights…_flickered…_ _That invisible being gave another laugh. _


	11. Chapter 11

_Silent Hill—The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 11—Therein Lies Truth

_What happened? _That was the first sort of questioning in both girls' minds as they sat up on the two sofas in the psychiatrist's office—what should have been the psychatrist's office. But things were different. They were now lying on just a low metal frame with cushioning covering it. Covering the floor was a different kind of carpet—the carpet having changed as well. Now it was a light rusty-cinnamon color with black lines running through for some kind of design—along with some numbers that looked handwritten in black ink. All around were beige walls covered with plastic panels that were somehow splotched with mold and bending in places. Then there was the desk.

That is, if a person could call that thing a desk now. Where the psychiatrist had been sitting, there was now a huge and long rectangular metal block. The bottom of it was spot-welded to the floor beneath the carpet. Thick black cables, smeared with some kind of grease, connected the metal block to the ceiling. And, of course, the ceiling had changed.

Looking up, the girls saw the top of this room had undergone a significant mutation—along with the rest of this place. Dim light-tubes shone from rusted light-fixtures, weak and sickly white light. The plain light made all the walls appear even more mold-splotched and water-damaged than they already were.

_Ew, this doesn't look much like a shrink's office at all, _thought Heather. She saw Cheryl shrug, sensed the idea of the shrug in her mind as well—a thought without words. Somehow, she felt even closer to her other self as well, almost as if their thoughts were running a bit together. _Like, is it me or are we more sensitive to each other's thoughts?_

_I think… Oh no, _thought Cheryl. _Something's happening. Something… _"Ow!" she exclaimed when the first sharp pain hit. Then came this sort of ringing sound in both the girls' heads, filling their minds with pain and sickness. "Ow-w-w…" Something was giving them _a headache all of a sudden_… _There was a flash of light outside the one shuttered window, and they clenched their eyes shut as the lights flick-flickered. _

_It all hurt so damned much. Their minds were full of pain. The affliction was seeping into their bodies. First they felt themselves going numb. Then came this awful tingling all over. The tingling burned a little, as if this place was being flooded with invisible but deadly radiation—killing them right now. And then…there was a sort of ringing…_until it stopped.

A voice resonated in their minds. _Why do things have to look your way?_ That was not Heather's thought ringing in the mind. And no, it was not Cheryl's thought. Both girls knew that there was only one other person that could communicate their way that they had encountered so far. Well, they were not sure if he was really a person.

Both girls carefully opened their eyes and lowered their hands from their heads. They almost expected the source of the pain and suffering to start up again. It did not. Eyes open, the pain was gone. And there he was.

It was him, or it, the figure in the rabbit suit. He was standing there was exactly as they saw him every time they saw him before: six-feet tall, dressed in a blue furry rabbit suit with a white and fluffy chest area, a skeletal mask of silvery metal. Of all other things, they remembered the mask. Those chrome eyepieces of the deathly rabbit-eared skeletal mask did not reveal the eyes, yet both girls sensed being stared at. Y_ou would come for the truth, _communicated the figure in the rabbit suit.

Cheryl stared into those eyes. She had too many questions in mind. How all of this happened, how the being in the bunny suit was able to do this. But the entity did not seem to be the talkative type—or the _communicative _type. The man-thing wearing the bunny suit only _thought _words to them.

So she thought, _Okay_, _Mister Bunny-Rabbit, Frank… Whatever you are. We're just dying to know something… What's up with all this? Who are you? _

The rabbit-being answered, _Who_ _names things in eternity? You must understand. This is important._

The girls stared at the rabbit-thing in expecting more of an explanation. Yes, they were staring. Normally, staring was something done in being rude. Or it was done when being angry at someone. They _were _feeling something like anger, and being polite was not something one did when taken to some other place with freaky carpets, moldy walls and messed-up lights. Where the Hell was this place? Did it even have a name?

So the rabbit-thing told them to try to understand. Yeah, Dad did once say to try understanding too—try to think things through. But Dad's dead. He's been dead for years now… Him not being around was probably why anger came so often and so easily these days. If he was here, Harry Mason would have told them to take a step back and mull it over in their minds. Yet, trying understanding before anger was what Heather and Cheryl were trying now.

But, this rabbit-figure, there was no understanding of the being. It was a figure in a bunny suit that only communicated through telepathy. They were pretty sure it was something alive behind that silvery mask and in that doubtlessly hot and stuffy wearing that thing all the time—probably for all of time since it mentioned _eternity_. When the figure in the rabbit suit communicated to them, the voice it used to send thoughts to mind sounded a little odd—a bit like a resonating echo that could have been an older woman's voice. The rabbit's mind-voice actually sounded like multiple voices, or no voice, like the voice-altering device used in those weird television shows.

Also about _eternity, t_he figure in the bunny suit told them to try understanding it. Thought Heather, _Cheryl, is this guy maybe trying too hard to be cryptic? Or maybe he can't help it…because he's crazier than both of us. _The figure in the rabbit costume could no doubt pick up the communication between the girls, but Heather didn't care. _Well, it's a matter of saying "he" if there's a man in there._

Thought back Heather, _Well, it understands us. Is could've been something that was once a man at some point. _She smirked. _And I don't mean a sex change. _Looking again to the figure in the rabbit suit, Heather crossed her arms and thought, _Say, Bunny-Man, you probably think we're being pretty inconsiderate right about now, thinking words past you like you're not here or something. Guess what? We're being a little bit rude, but it's a Hell of a lot less obnoxious than abducting two girls and sending them to some weird other place… _

_Yeah, I'd ask where we are, but you'd probably just give us that eternity stuff again, _added Cheryl. _What the Hell. I'm asking anyway. Tell us where we are so we know where we're burying your sorry corpse after we're done killing you._

Exclaimed the figure in the bunny suit, _Eh-hah! _Cheryl and Heather were not sure of what that was—a mental laugh, a cough, something. This time, the figure in the rabbit suit gave another one of those slow nods. But this nod was more a gesture to the single slats-covered window of this room. Funny thing, they didn't see that window there before. _Behold the larger reality, _communicated the figure in the bunny suit.

_Okay, we'll behold, _thought the girls. They took their time in walking over to the window. Heahter went around the right side of the office sofa and Cheryl around the left Both arrived at the window at around the same time. Both looked outside this dimly lit room.

Outside was a view of a city-street in the dying orange-red colors of sunset-toned light. Everything was cast in glowing colors and given a soft sort of look by a faint mist in the air. Though a city view, this was no sort of city they had seen before. And it was not a city they wished to be in. But there it was—a lane running left and right, though not just any sort of street.

It was made of rusted steel plates covered with some kind of greasy iron mesh. At the sides were uneven sidewalks splotched with greenish mold. Cracks in the sidewalks had bits of reddish plants spouting out of them. Flanking that street out there were some buildings…if you could call them buildings. A few of the buildings were obliterated, with the rusted blocky machines inside them exposed like innards. Some streetlamps poked up out of the sidewalk, yet those were streetlamps were of a sort that they had never seen before: large spotlight-shaped devices attached to the tops of rusty metal poles with steel barbs poking outwards. Something that resembled a six-legged ball of living meat floated by, something with six arms dangling down.

And _that _was enough of a view for both the girls. What the Hell kind of place _was _this? This place had buildings with rooms and streets to travel. It seemed to be a city. Yet no sort of city like this ought to exist. They pulled away from the shuttered window of this place before they saw something _else_ they didn't want to see.

Even though they did pull away from the window, the view outside left a troubling, sickening and downright disgusting smear on their minds. There was no way that any sort of city could be like that. Hell, there was no way that _anyplace_ could be like that. Yet there it was, as real as the mold-infected plastic-covered and that desk-shaped block of metal. Just step right on out of this building, and there they would be taking a fine afternoon stroll along a metal street set in a distorted and altered cityscape. On second thought, they would not exactly want to meet the sort of people that created such scenery—if there were any people here at all. Maybe they would not have to do so if the people were all gone… Creatures like the one they saw probably had something to do with it.

Cheryl and Heather had no particular desire to deal with those creatures at all. They looked to the six-foot figure in the bunny suit and silvery metal mask. _Get us out of here, _communicated Cheryl. _We don't care how the Hell you got us to this place or who made it. Just get us back._

_And if you don't, you'll regret it, _thought Heather to the figure in the rabbit suit. She looked around for something dangerous to grab… Yes, behind the sofa, there so happened to be a wicked-looking sort of rusty tool hanging on the right-side wall. The girl grabbed it and held it in both hands. It was a metal contraption that looked something like a cross between a wrench and a drill, the handle as thick as a broomstick handle and about as long as a forearm. Just holding it made her feel reassured. _Everybody_ and everything understands the threat of physical violence.

Heather also found something especially interesting to use. The thing looked like a piece of construction machinery. It had a thick and long metal tube with a handle on one end and a smaller opening and finger-sized open attachment at the end. The thing was some kind of hand-held mini-jackhammer without a chisel-piece. And it must have some _serious _power because there was a _radiation _symbol stamped on the top of it—that symbol of a circle with three triangle-sectors. And from the scorch-marks at the open-ended part, there was the idea that the thing could also be some kind of short-range weapon. If it wasn't a weapon before, it could be.

These objects in their hands, the girls began to approach the figure in the rabbit suit. _So how about it?_ _You get us out of here, and we won't have to put holes in you. _They stopped within about three feet of the figure, yet they still held firmly onto their improvised weaponry.

Cheryl gripped the hammer-wrench thing and felt as if she could obliterate stone walls and was preparing to do the same to that guy's bones. Heather wasn't exactly sure how this nuclear-powered jackhammer thing worked, but she was especially sure that it could blast-vaporize a hole clear through anything solid. In short, the girls were dead set on making this figure in the rabbit suit very dead.

_You're the one making this all happen, _thought Heather. _You took us away. Now we're in this ugly-assed place with everything all nasty and disgusting! It's all your fault, whoever you are. You did this._

_So you can un-do this, _thought Cheryl. They were steps from the figure in the rabbit suit. _If you don't, we're gonna use these mutant tool-things until there's just gonna be a heap of bloody rags and some pummeled meat. _She hefted the wrench-thing.

_Your hatred is delicious, _declared the figure in the rabbit suit. _Hearts filled with hatred make nutrition. That is the truth. That is the way. Some day you will understand. Eh-hah! _

_Flick-flicker, _went the lights. In that flickering were glimpses of a shadowy figure with a large head and a distorted body. There were swaths of bandages worn over charred and lumpy flesh. The girls thought they maybe saw some tentacles growing out of the thing. This sight made them hesitate.

The thing was big. It wore a large buttoned-down sort of shirt-gown over its upper-body, a torso that seemed to be shaped with lumpy muscles that were in all the wrong places. The two legs were clad in stitched-together brown leather pants. Atop this ponderous body was a head was even larger than it ought to have been, with a large bald lump growing out of the top.

"_Orp?_" asked the man-thing, speaking through the side of its scabs-covered mouth. It pulled something out from behind its back—a glassy black rod that crackled with blue lightning. It raised this rod, and energy crackled along its surface.

Ah, but Cheryl swung first with the wrench-thing. _Thunch!_ The one-spike piece of the weird wrench-thing sank into the meat-creature's abdomen. She pulled it out and tried another jab, pulled it out again. Watery stuff like blood flowed out from the hole in its body.

Heather picked up the nuclear jackhammer-thing and pointed the barrel at the being. Now, how does one use this thing? She squeezed the handle. Something was triggered, and there was an extra-bright _flash _of light and a boom of sound that exploded in this room.

It left an after-effect of sparkles on her vision. Her face and arms felt hot and numb, like a really quick and strong sun-burn. Well, that was what happens when one uses a nuclear-powered jackhammer-gun thing from an alternate reality without reading the instructions!

The man-thing stood there with a hole blasted clear-through the left half of its torso. Baked internal organs hung down from the top-inside of the hole. It tried to say something, which only resulted in a watery blood-like black fluid gushing from that massive wound. It collapsed to fall onto the floor, and the crystal-rod it held shattered and let out a green puff of smoke.

The figure in the rabbit suit stood there as plain and as un-presuming as anything. _The days of understanding will arrive, _communicated the figure in the rabbit suit_. Today is tomorrow. Yesterday was consumed, so many screams, so much blood. They can't save themselves while trying to save you. Try to save you… You kill him. It is a darker sight._

That said, things began to happen again. The lights…_flickered _again. Except this time, it was as if…_the entire room flickered. _Everything took on glimpses of blurriness. An awful headache…_gripped the heads of the girls. They dropped what they were holding, put both hands to their heads and screamed, their scream stretching into pain as they…disappeared from this reality._

…

2.

…

_Everything…was a sort of blur_. _It was a smeared blur where nothing seemed to have clear and clean borders. What everything was, where they were, they did not know. And for some stretch of time, the girl did not even know who she was… Wait, there were two of them, two girls. Neither girl knew which or what… Who was who again? There was once the name Alessa, which belonged to somebody else now. _

_That six-foot being in the rabbit suit was here. Come dream your lie again, it commanded. It was standing boldly and was staring. Was it angrily waiting or calmly waiting…? It was hard to tell as the silvery metal death-mask hid all expressions. Well, there would be expressions to hide if the thing wearing the bunny suit actually had a human face. If it was human or not, the girls did not know… You must dream on, said the figure in the rabbit suit.. _

_Heather sat up…_on one of the soft-leather sofas. Cheryl did the same. _Okay, now we remember. I'm Heather. You're Cheryl, _communicated Heather. Her eyes took in the view of this richly furnished room: the thick beige carpeting spread out on a wooden floor, the wood-paneling of the walls being hidden behind bookshelves along two of the walls. To the right was the psychiatrist's desk—with a well-dressed man named Vincent sitting behind it.

Cheryl and Heather could not help but picture the man as once having an unshaven face, a head of unkempt but somewhat effeminate blond hair to go with an unbuttoned shirt and vest, wrinkled slacks worn with shoes. That was how they always thought of Vincent…before he was stabbed to death. The Vincent they knew was somewhat scrubby looking. He was also supposed to be dead.

But _this _Vincent was especially neatly dressed, fastidiously dressed from the pressed formal jacket and crisp white shirt-and-tie to the lengths of his dry-cleaned trousers and polished shoes—well-dressed head-to-toe. That is certainly not the Vincent from their world, the one they had ecountered before, unless he somehow found a way to this universe as well.

_Yeah, we oughta know by now, _thought Cheryl to Heather. _Death is not the end. Buthowd this bastard come back with the exact-same face and body-type? Even we weren't able to do that when we came back, and we had the help of that demon-thing._

"I see that you finally decided to be awake," said this _Doctor _Vincent. "This pseudo-narcoleptic behavior, I should add, does not necessarily reflect well upon your progress towards being normal and…_well-adjusted_ young women. It would not do to fraudulently deviate from societal norms. So tell me… Would you say that your behavior is 'normal' from the so-called 'Other' universe you claim to come from?"

_Wait a second, _thought Heather, communicating the sentiment. _Since when did we tell this big blond jerk anything? Oh wait… Yeah, in this world, we must have been seeing this shrink for some time now. Whatever world he's in, he's still a jerk-off. _

_Don't I know it, _agreed Cheryl. She said aloud, "What are you _talking _about?" said the girl aloud to the psychiatrist--because the "doctor" sitting behind the desk could not unserstand thought-to-thought communication. Or if he could hear what Cheryl and Heather sent to each other by way of thoughts, he did not show it. "So we believe some extra stuff. What is the harm?" Right hand in her lap, she made a slight sweeping gesture with her left. "This world can't be all there is. Lots of religions believe that."

"What about you?" added the other girl. "Who's to say that _you're _not crazy? What kind of doctor lets parents drug up their own kids? Our parents… Ew." _We said it before, but let's try the rapist-molester argument again. _ "Next, I suppose you'll say that it's normal for parents to drug their daughters to have them sit alone in rooms with strange men. That must go over pretty well, don't you think?"

"Besides, just having weird nightmares is no reason for our so-called parents to have us sent to people like you," said the previous girl. "You know what? Maybe _you _ought to be on the couch instead of us for believing in that cult…." _That cult that you were in before, _she mentally added

"No, you are in the wrong. I _must _stop you there," said this version of Vincent. "I must _insist _that this talk of alternate universes and malicious heretical religious cults is as dangerous as it is foolish. If you ever wish to be accepted as 'normal,' which is your goal, you must not ever speak of such blasphemy!" He then scowled and _slapped _the desk. "_This _is reality—this desk, this room, _this _world, a world of _our _God. _That _is normal!" _Wham-wham-wha-a-a-am…_went the man's left hand. Yes, the man was pounding the desk now with the bottom of a clenched fist. And he was yelling while his face was becoming blood-red in color. "_When _will you finally _realize that the truth is life! _If not, _reality comes cr-r-r-ashing down!_" yelled the so-called psychiatrist. He stood up and clenched his right fist into something like a meaty mallette. "You _do not want falsehood! You want reality!" Wham, _went the right fist. "_Reality _and _normalcy, _that is what _everyone _should want!"

The girls opened their mouths to say something. There was that…_ringing sound again. It came with that sickness and dizziness feeling, that blurriness. He was coming. He, the being in the rabbit suit, was making himself known again. Everything blurred and vibrated until…_he fully faded into this reality.

There he was, standing in the middle of the office—six feet in height and in that silver-metal death-mask, the metal ears pointing upwards. Those eye-holes were blank and infinitely dark. But they knew that he was staring at them. Big and solid as he looked, the figure cast no shadow.

"What's wrong?" asked Vincent. "Oh, you must be looking at your _rabbit, _right? Frank the rabbit-being? Not _that _delusion again! It's like that telepathy you both share: only exists for _you _and no one else. That is, unless you figured out to telepathically communicate with _Frank, _too." His sneer wilted. "You are _wrong! _Because if Frank was standing here, then he would _again _be a harbinger of the end of the world as we know it…while some kind of bastardized mutants strut around in the background."

If the thing wearing the suit heard these comments, he or it did not respond. The figure simply stood there and was looking real as anything. Even if it didn't have a shadow, he was a solid and huge enough presence that he obscured the view of Vincent behind that desk. From his thick fluffy arms and furry chest to the floppy feet at the ends of round legs, to the silvery mask, the being that Vincent called Frank was _real. _

"Don't think your beliefs are so viable! With that belief in Frank, your _imaginary _friend, you believe that the world shall come to an end. Well, rethink your theory and heretical beliefs—because this world _will not end soon_. Nobody else in this world believes in such blasphemous and incorrect thoughts! We normal people do not believe that a prophetic phantom from an alternate reality can read the future. Normal people do not even believe in alternate realities! So where is this so-called 'Frank?' Is he standing in the middle of this office, nodding his head to all this as if he understands?"

Indeed, the figure in the rabbit suit gave a slow nod. Then came that odd exclamation of an echoed laugh-sound in the girls' minds... _Eh-hah! _Before, it barely sounded human or almost animal-like. Now the sound of Frank's strange laugh-like sound was like nothing on Earth—not this Earth. _Eh-hah! _So exclaimed the Frank-figure again, as if reading their thoughts on him. Yes, the figure in the rabbit suit could very well could read their thoughts.

The girls moved themselves, pivoted to sit facing Vincent the psychiatrist. They were giving the blond-haired, well-dressed man a nasty look. At the backs of their minds was this steady image of the fanatical male cult-leader who used money and manipulation to build a so-called "church"—making for the means of causing them so much pain mere years ago. Now here was this alternate version of the _same _man with the _same_ personality. Now this man, instead of being a fanatical cult-leader, was a fanatical leader in the medical field of psychiatrics. Well, that would be psychiatry that follow the laws of this world. Here he was, telling them that the being known as Frank was likely a product of their imaginations.

"Frank is real" said Heather. Bare arms still crossed, she nodded to the figure wearing the silvery skeletal rabbit-death mask and furry suit. "He tells us things. He keeps telling us truths that nobody else would."

"So how do we know that stuff if something like Frank doesn't tell us?" asked Cheryl. "He's gotta be able to know things. Then he's gotta be able to make _us _know things. If Frank wasn't real, we wouldn't be able to know that there are things about this town that you don't want us knowing."

_Whip-whap! _A smear of motion, and Frank blurred out of existence. He quick-blurred back into this reality. This time, the rabbit-figure was standing at the right side of Vincent's desk. Frank communicated, _Does_ _a doctor buy brass? It makes bright and quick golden sounds. It looks like him. It is speed and heat. _

Asked Cheryl, _What do you mean by that…? You're barely making sense. _Indeed, the rabbit figure was saying things that sounded more like drug-tripped puzzles than anything. Or maybe that was the only way Frank could communicate—speaking in puzzles sometimes.

_Speed and heat, _thought Heather. Then she understood. _Vincent's got a gun in his drawer. Why the Hell would a shrink pack a pistol? _"Okay you shrink. I just got word from the 'imaginary friend' that you've got a loaded handgun somewhere on you. So tell me, why the Hell would a man of medicine pack a pistol? And it's a powerful one at that—more bullets to go with the gun, too"

"Like, it'd make people think that you were _afraid_ of something. Could it be…something that only crazy people are supposed to see" added Cheryl. She saw a suddenly sober look on his face. Oh yeah… Heather and Cheryl couldn't exactly read other peoples' minds, but they could sometimes pick up hints and impressions of what was on their minds—like picking up emotions without having to look at their facial expressions. And they could definitely sense that they were snagging a weak point. "Somebody that looks an _awful _lot like you once said that they only _look_ like monsters. Maybe they only reflect the truth in your heart or some crazy talk like that."

"Aww… Are we hurting your feelings, Vincent? Well, if that _is _if Vincent is your real name," said Heather. She tilted her head to the right in a look of mock sympathy. "Don't worry about monsters. They're not so bad once you realize that they're not supposed to be real. Because only _crazy people _see things like Frank."

Continued the other girl, "And only _crazy people _get tripped into alternate realities full of monsters instead of people. Hell, only _crazy people _believe in alternate realities and the resurrection of some kind of God, huh? We're all supposed to be true to the religion of this world."

Swish_-whap! _That was the sound of Vincent whipping open one of those fine mahogany drawers of the desk. The man raised the once-hidden pistol. When he raised it into sight, the girls didn't think they ever saw that kind of handgun before—probably only a pistol that a person could find in this world. But they knew a handgun when they saw it. He snapped off the safety and began to aim it in their direction.

_No way is this man killing us, _thought the girls. _He shall not harm us. That man shall not. _Thinking this, they stared hard at him. His right arm began to turn away and shake. There were audible sounds of joints popping in his right arm, also the sound of something breaking. _Thunch,_ came the sound from his right shoulder.

"_Aaugh_…" he screamed, looking on in horror. Something unseen had broken his right arm. Now the allegedly broken limb was turning the gun on _himself. _His right arm then popped the pistol into his mouth, a surprised look in his eyes. _Pwop! _That was a loud and wet sound coming from his direction when some of his brains were blown out the top of his skull. His corpse then dropped out of sight behind the desk. There was a _flick-flicker _of the electric light.

_Wow… Like, didn't mean for exactly _that _to happen, _thought Cheryl. _Who'd have thought it would get that far? Maybe we oughtta have tried reasoning with him or something. You know, instead of making him dead? Or maybe not._

_Yeah, I'm siding with the maybe-not sentiment, _communicated Heather. _He would've had us shot dead instead. I don't exactly want to find out what happens if we die in this world. After all, he _did _say that the laws of this world were different._

_I'm hoping there's room in those laws for crackpot shrinks that blow out their own brains in front of their own patients, _responded Cheryl. The girl stood up and took a very slow walk over to by the desk. "Ew!" exclaimed the girl. _I don't exactly want to get any closer. The body's all mutilated 'cause its gourd is blasted. It's all squooshy and bloody and I don't wanna be here any more!_

Heather agreed. _I hear that! Let's get the Hell outta here and wait for those so-called parents. _The girl gave a glance to the spattered remains of Vincent's brains and to the slumped figure onto the ground. This must be the second reality he's been killed in. _Wait a second, _communicated Heather. _Where's Frank? _

_Yeah, he appeared fast enough, _thought Cheryl as she looked into Heather's eyes. _Now he doesn't want to be here any more. It's like he only came for the show. Or it's like the event scared him away. Helll, maybe this was all too much for him/ The rabbit-guy must've thought this pretty intense. _

_I got the idea that the guy in the death-bunny getup was pretty disgusted when he left. It could be maybe because we did something wrong, too_, thought back Heather. _Right or wrong, maybe he doesn't go for death or something. _

_Let's call a cab, _thought Cheryl. _This reality has got to have those, at least. _She walked right over to the telephone atop the psyciatrist's desk and still ignoring the corpse behind the desk, the wet splat on the far right-side wall… It wasn't as if the thing was going to be haunted or anything… Or maybe it would be. What the Hell, she didn't care. This was the year 1988. Only a handful of really crazy rich people had those things. And there were probably _no _cell-phones. Think… What was the name of a local taxi service…? One of those extra memories made for the number of such a service float up in her mind. She dialed it on the telephone as if she'd been using this thing forever.

There was a brief and dying hiss of static until the thing picked up. "_Three-Six-Nine Taxi Service!_" came the voice on the line—the slight hiss of static in the background as if the man was talking through a radio connection. "_Waddaya need?_"

_I need a reality check, for one, _thought Cheryl. _Yeah, and throw in some wine cooler while you're at it. _Heather smiled. Cheryl then said aloud, "We're at the…Red Circle Valley Institute. We're done here and need a lift to Sunset Medows. How much is it?" _Not that we know were we are now… What town is this?_

"_We know the place, toots We get calls from there all the time,_" went the voice of the cab dispatcher. "_Tell ya what. Ya sound a little lost. We'll give ya the runnin' weeknight rate. Lemme see…_ _To Sunset Meadows?_ _Least two people? That'll be six bucks—flat rate._"

_Wow, at least things are cheaper back in this time, _thought Heather. _Wait… Do we even have six bucks? Those bastards bundled us off pretty damned quick. _

She dug into her right pocket of these tight jeans. Again, the girl was made aware of how especially tight these jeans were: the blue cloth conforming to the shapes of legs, thighs and hips, fitting like a second skin… Nope. She then tried the back-pockets of her jeans pocket and standing so her buttocks didn't press too hard and give her fingers room. _Wait a second… Yeah, here we go!_ There was the familiar scraping of a few dried dollars, which she managed to pull out—the money dry and stiff from being in the dryer with the clothes. Bringing it around front, she checked the denominations of the bills. _Whoa! I've got like two-hundred bucks! We really must be loaded in this world to carry money around like this!_

_Wouldn't surprise me at all, given the size of that gigantic house, _thought back Cheryl. She said to the man on the telephone. "Six bucks? No problem. We'll be out front. And thanks."

"_No problem, honey!_" said the gruff man's voice on the telephone. "_Glad ta be of service! Just give 'em 'bout eighteen minutes. And give yer other self a hiya for me…_" The telephone connection faded into a windy hissing sound before the line went quiet along with the occasional sound of flickering fire.

Thought Heather, _So that guy's call had that sound in the background, huh? _By _that _sound, Heather was referring to the sound of fire. The girls didn't think about it too often, but they were a little afraid of fire. Both of the girls could recognize _that _sound it made—how the flames themselves made heavy rippling sounds when heating the air, the sounds it made when consuming flammable materials. The sound of the fire on the background was reduced in the background of that phone call, but it was certainly there. _Come on, let's not worry about it, _interjected Heather. _The smell of that guy's brains and stuff is getting to my head… Sorry, bad choice of words. _

_The guy was a head-doctor alright, _mentally added Cheryl. _Yeah, we're going. _They then made a walk for the door out of the wood-paneled office. Some of the knick-knacks on the wall and on the shelves looked pretty pricey—statuettes and some paintings. Well, they _would have _and _could have _taken the items. No, there was no need to steal. When they stepped out of the doctor's office, they left the door open.

…

They expected to be questioned or stopped upon leaving the doctor's office. They passed through a wood-paneled short hallway until finding the double doors—doors going out to the front desk. No one objected to them walking out. That was because there was nobody here. And the front desk they walked past had nobody behind it. _Nobody's around, _thought Heather. _Even those nurses are gone. Good thing,'cause I think I would've had to bust some skulls for my own sake, just to let off some anger. _They then walked right on out of this place.

Somehow, it was also easy sunset outside. There was a low sunset the color or warm and heatedb ;_Huh_… _He made it seem like the afternoon was over. It's still day outside—if just barely afternoon. Makes you wonder how he did that illusion._

The taxi-cab came buy. It pulled close to the curb. A hazy and smoke-filled driver's cab nma did something on the dashboard to make the driver's side window come down. Smoke billowed out. _Oh, it's cigar-smoke, _thought the girls They heard the driver say, "Ya called…! I'm ready to go."

The girls regarded the vehicle. It looked to be in a glowingly pristine yellow color. Though it was sunset and most other colors of the local neighborhood seemed muted into shades of gray. There was _something _about this vehicle. The affect was like seeing this vehicle under normal lighting while everything else was steeped in gloom and darkness. No other vehicles around meant that they could use—other than maybe hot-wiring one of those new-looking cars out back. Back here in 1988, they do not have the sophisticated anti-hotwiring technology. All the same, the did not want to be thieves.


	12. Chapter 12

_Silent Hill—The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 12—Hatred and Pain

"Here you go," said Heather, putting money in the cab-driver's left hand. The cab driver's limb was extended out from the darkness of the vehicle. It was night-time now, the dual headlamps from the taxi-cab blazing to illuminate the street on the left while the heat and hum of the vehicle's engine filled the air. As stated by the cab dispatcher, the ride itself only cost six dollars. That extra three dollars was a tip. Well, why not? The girls had had some money to throw around. And prices were cheaper here in 1988. So why not pay the guy a little more something for driving them all this way? He did get them over here from one town over.

Both girls watched as the taxi-cab driver's hand and arm pulled back into the darkness of the cab—making the man totally inscrutable. That darkness was actually the reason why they did not see the man's face for the entire ride. During the entire ride, that light in the little plastic dome never came on, not even once. And there was never enough ambient light outside to see him. For all they knew, the cab-driver could actually be one of those bald, large-eyed gray creatures from another world. His hand _did _look a little on the gray side—and that could maybe _not _be because of the local streetlamps bluish light.

"Yup. 'S-good," said the cab driver. He didn't say, _It's_ _good. _No, he really did say it that way. "S' ya round an' round." The window rolled up, the cab's engine revved when it sped away into the suburban night and made a ridiculously tight right turn—a squeal as the tires swiped pavement. Something streaked through the sky.

Now there was just them standing here, out here. Trees and night-darkened spaces to the of left and right of this road seemed larger and more omnipresent, trees that pleasantly made for much shade during the day but seemed tall and ominous at night. There were some streetlamps casting some bluish-green florescent light to keep this street from being totally dark. And some of the houses on this street had lights on. It was something Cheryl and Heather had to get used to after having lived in the city most of their recent lives.

It took a few seconds of quick walking up until the girls were at the side of the street where their home was—the house. Up front was the massive illumination of the front lawn-area, as if to blaze away any threats from any kind of deformed evil that was maybe afraid of light. This house was not really a grand mansion, not officially. But to them, the place was still huge. The girls came from living in small, low-rent apartments. Ending up in a house like this still seemed too good to be true, too strange to be true.

Now the darkness seemed even more noticeable and present. Night-time ruled this street. Shadows that ought to have just been darker shades seemed to swallow light. Staring into that darkness made for some uncomfortable images. Was something…_moving _in the shrouded shadows behind some of the many trees? Something with a gigantic lumpy head and wearing a long coat may be standing over at the right, maybe. Or was that a shrub? Another tall allegedly shrub-like shape seemed to take steps around to go behind another tree.

It just might be a good idea to get back to the house as soon as possible. Cheryl and Heather were still feeling slight ill from the effects of the heavy sedation they had been given hours earlier. It was such heavy sedation, and since the girls were of petite physical stature, it affected them even more. It could also have been that the dosage was set deliberately high to harm them or to insure sedation.

Thought Cheryl, _How much of that drug did they hit us with? I'm still feeling a little bit off. We just ought to cut out on any sort of canned soda from the fridge for a while—just in case, _thought Cheryl. _No telling what's in it. _

_Oh yeah… Speaking of 'soda,' I've got an axe to grind with certain parent-figures, _came Heather's mental response. _If there weren't any laws against murder, I think we'd have a ball with these so-called 'parents.' Drugging us up, tying us down, sending us off to a doctor who's supposed to help people and turns out to be screwy… What kind of parents do that?_

Thinking this way to each other, they went to the door at the right side of the huge house. There were great big glaring lights illuminating the front lawn-area, but the sides of the house were especially dark. Something rustled about in bushes. _Damn, and here the Hell we are without even our switchblades, _thought Heather as she felt the hip- and back-pockets of her jeans, feeling for house-key…there being no house-key. Cheryl didn't have her key, either.

Damned even more was how their house-keys must be in their purses. The purses were, in turn, in their backpacks. Their backpacks must still be in the kitchen from this afternoon. Therefore, the keys were in the purses, the purses were in the backpacks, and the backpacks were in the house—_which was locked._

Or was it? Just for the Hell of it, Heather, tried the knob. It easily twisted. Meaning, the thing was open all this time. _Yeah, there we go, _mentally cheered Cheryl—no fear of the thing in the bushes hearing a transmitted thought. Of course they were sure to shut the door behind them.

…

Inside the house, they looked around the brightly lit kitchen. _No problem, _thought Cheryl, _I don't think they'd leave the door unlocked. Hey, it's open after all. Luck is with us or something like that. Well, whatever and all that… Let's get in before something gets into us. _And so thinking, they entered the back-kitchen area. It was the same place at which the father-figure had placed the wheelchairs. And in here, the nearly empty cans of soda—drugged-up soda—were still on the counter. She took them both up and walked over to the garbage can… _What, there's no recycling bin? Oh yeah, that's right. _

There were no recycling bins to be found in this house or any house. This was the 1980s. Such is a time period in which people happily drive about in gas-guzzling vehicles—billowing clouds of pollutants chugged out the exhaust pipes. People will also toss chunks of trash out of those same vehicles, littering like mad. That litter came from products made in big loud factories all full of thumping dark machinery that gushed dark smoke upwards, even more air pollution up to the sky while piping all kinds of questionable substances into already polluted rivers and the ground. So… _Damned right_ there were no recycling bins. Who cares about the environment? This was the _suburbs. _

_Speaking of the damned, _thought Cheryl, _you'd think parents would care about their daughters coming home in darkness. Where are they, anyway? They'd better not be in their bedroom. _

It so turned out that the parents were in the dining room area of this house—adjacent to the kitchen. Lights low, they were sitting there on separate pieces of furnityere. Cheryl found the knob that turned up the lights and gave it a deft twist. Lights went from low to full-bright in a sliver of a second. Lights on, Heather saw the scene. In this richly furnished living room, there were three primary pieces of furniture: two large armchairs and a long leather sofa. Sitting in the left-side armchair was the father-figure, his eyes open. He said nothing, did nothing at first.

Seeing a man in an armchair and sitting very still brought back a very uncomfortable moment for Cheryl and Heather. For a moment, they thought he was dead and bloodied, blood pooled all around the sofa… No, that was just shadows on a colored carpet. The blonde-haired, tall father-figure was still alive. He was sitting very still because he was getting very drunk. The man just then lifted a glass of red wine and had a drink.

As for the mother-figure Alessa, her elegant self was gently reclining atop the sofa. Her flowing and silken burgundy colored gown covered her long and graceful body from neck to ankles… Yet even in covering, it revealed much. The silk of the garment lung close to all the lengths and curves of her exquisite body in such a way that one could tell the woman was wearing nothing underneath. Going with her white silk gown, her long shiny dark head of hair—a contrasting her pale skin—was long and out.

The woman sat up to sit with knees together and hands atop her thighs, doing this in one smooth motion. Her dark eyes looked to the girls, large dark eyes that seemed to drink in light as one consumes a fine red wine. _My god, she's beautiful, _thought Cheryl and Heather. The fact that this woman was supposed to be their _mother_ in this world seemed to do little to stop the thought.

"And so you have returned to us in a questionable way," came her voice. It was just as melodic and as refined a voice as before, a wonderfully feminine and lightly accented voice that flowed just as well as her gown. "It is especially unfortunate that you have returned to us in less-than-flawless mental health. Is it not terrible to walk about with the _wrong _notions of one's world? _Hmm?_"

All the murderous desires of mutilation and murder the girls had for this version of Alessa, it was gone. Hearing her voice, seeing her motion, the beautiful woman's large dark eyes were set in a graceful face of beauty and concern. They just could not bring themselves to yelling at this wonderfully beautiful figure of a female. No one would _ever _want to hurt _her. _It was just such grace, such _bliss _that brought them to standing there and listening to everything that she said…

Alessa spread her slender, graceful arms--her slender fingers and hands open. It was as if the woman was embracing and welcoming them. "My dear daughters, you need _help_, for yourselves if for no one else. Why do you pain your mother so? Everything is being done for your sake and benefit. The _doctor_ is there for you. Your friend is also there to offer companionship in the face of adversity.

"Even your enemies are here for your benefit. What is life without adversity? How could you learn the value of compassion and mercy without first encountering hatred and suffering? This is _your _reality. How you deal with this reality…is your discretion even if it is for your benefit."

A large red-metal cup appeared on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Cheryl blinked and was unsure if she really saw what she just saw. That red-metal cup _wasn't _there before. Now there it was—appearing out of nowhere. The girl would have noticed the thing if it was not there before, something that looked so odd and out-of-place on a wooden coffee tabletop. Or maybe she was just imagining it?

_Reality is your discretion, _came a now-familiar mind-voice. It was the thought-transmitted voice of the figure wearing the silvery metal mask, the deceptively fluffy bunny suit worn on its body… They were thinking about how he looked… And he faded into existence.

There he was, appearing out of nowhere—just like that red-metal cup. Metal death-mask on and fluffy bunny suit on, the man-like figure in the bunny suit was now in this living room. With his presence came...hints of a headache. The lights flickered. _There is another truth, _communicated the entity in the death-mask bunny suit—his mental voice vibrant. _Do you want to know?_

The girls looked at Alessa, looked at the figure in the bunny suit. Alessa merely stood there, not acknowledging the presence of the ominous entity. That figure in the bunny suit also stood, swaying slightly side to side. But Heather and Cheryl _both _knew that Alessa saw the figure in the bunny suit. It was not that the exquisitely beautiful woman actually _looked _at the figure in the bunny suit or even moved her eye-focus to where the entity stood. Yet there was the impression that Alessa knew that the entity known as _Frank _was here—is here now.

_You want to know, _communicated the figure in the bunny suit. _Eh-hah! _The entity made that spasm sort of noise again. They still did not know if it was a laugh or a cough. _Eh-hah!_ Whichever the case, the figure in the bunny suit bowed its head and slightly tilted it to the right, a sudden bright, florescent bluish-white glow of light from its right chrome eyepiece—a blaze of glory and brightness.

Then things began happening. _Blink-flicker! _The lights blinked. A fresh burst of pain and suffering came to mind. It was making for…_a headache. It was a world of agony, a dark and twisted feeling of pain and suffering. They could feel the mewling sounds and occasional screams of suffering souls in a distorted landscape of strange streets and machine-buildings. _

_Then the entity disappeared…_ from this reality, going away again. With its disappearance went the huge headache that overwhelmed them and the vision it brought. Everything seemed to be back to normal. This was still the dining room-area of this mini-mansion: pricey sofa, two grand armchairs, expensive-looking furnishings along the walls. Alessa was still standing there with her arms outstretched, her head tilted to the left.

_What the Hell just happened? Well, whatever, _thought Cheryl_. Now I'm serious thinking about giving this Alessa bitch some talking to! Don't know what happened before, but we're strong again. Yeah, maybe we ought to go back to those plans we had earlier. _She smiled at Alessa.

"What _are _you two discussing?" came Alessa's voice. "What goes on? There is nothing to talk of beyond your own concerns and care. We _do _care." There was the slightest note of disappointment in her voice.

_Eh-hah! _Wherever he was, they heard that rabbit-entity make that noise again. Heather noticed a long gold bar suddenly blink into existence—a rectangular gold bar about as wide as a man's hand and covered with strangely written numbers atop it. The anomalous object had appeared in front of Alessa's bare feet. The elegant woman seemed not to notice it immediately, though she kept her feet well away from the object. Was there a slight _glow _coming from the square plate?

_Help me figure this out, _thought Heather. There was that red-metal cup on top of the coffee table. Then there was that wide gold bar in front of Alessa's feet. _Something _was going on here. _What does this mean? Are we going nuts?_

As the girls thought this, something seemed not right about Alessa. The beautiful woman was still standing with her body posed that way, long legs and torso outlined with the caressing silk gown, arms outstretched. Her beautiful face still held that expression, large dark eyes looking.

_Who knows, _came Cheryl's thought-response. _Maybe we already are gone and don't know it. You're seeing two things that weren't there before and suddenly are. And… Hold a sec. Why isn't Alessa saying anything else? Funny thing, she hasn't moved, either. _

That was when they felt the edges of a headache, that ringing in their ears again… _Oh no. Not again, _thought Heather as that now-familiar feeling closed over both herself and Cheryl. It was happening again. And it was happening here at home.

…

2.

…

It began with the sound of something snarling outside. Or it was a belching sound—hard to tell. _Thunch,_ came the sound at the house's front double-doors, a soft sort of sound. It was the sound of something dry and meaty brushing up against it… _Thunch, thunch… _

"_Blorf?_" came the questioning sound. Then the thing was brushing up against the door again. It was as if whatever was on the other side of the door had limbs made of dried flesh. And there was no telling if it even had hands. Maybe the thing was brushing the door with two stumps.

_Oh no! _Thought Cheryl, _What the Hell is that thing? We need something to fight with, _thought Cheryl. _There's gotta be knives or something in the kitchen… _She regarded the father-figure and mother-figure sitting on the furniture—both sitting with eyes wide open but being still as mannequins. About the father-figure, certain thoughts came to mind… Some of those extra memories were some of those thoughts—those memories that appeared in the girls' minds the longer they stayed in this reality.

Some of those memories were telling Cheryl and Heather that the father-figure had an extensive collection of personal weapons in one room of this house—some of them in this very room. Of course they were locked. But the father-figure always carried the keys in his wallet. The father-figure was sitting right here.

_Time to snatch this Dad's wallet, _thought Heather. Cheryl nodded in agreement to the thought. Both girls approached the man sitting upright on the sofa. Heather bent over with one hand on her left knee and used her right, waving the hand in front of his face. No response, so she then moved over to the right side of the man while Cheryl pulled his right leg. This was as so it made the man's right pants-pocket easier to access. Heather's right hand easily plucked the rather thick wallet.

_Wow, that was easy, _thought Cheryl. _It's like we did this before or something. Not that I'd recommend it. _She watched as Heather flipped open the wallet to get at a fancy looking key with a _C _on it. _Wouldn't the letter _G _make more sense? For guns? _There was the sound of that thing brushing up against the door and breathing heavily. She held the thick, money-filled wallet for a few more seconds…before letting it drop to the floor. Then both girls heard the doorknob rattle.

That thing was starting to get smart. Where the Hell did it come from? _Well, never mind that. We'll just get a move-on before that thing figures out how to pick the lock or whatever, _thought Heather. She and Cheryl then made a quick jog for a cabinet in the far corner of this too-large living room.

They found an ornate and traditional-looking kind of cabinet. It seemed to be the gun-case. They both looked and felt around for the place to put the key… Heather saw a place in the upper portion. She had to reach up as high as she could, putting her left hand on the cabinet while standing on her toes to put the key in. Good thing she was wearing sneakers instead of her favorite boots: The boots were harder to stand on tip-toes on. _Thunkle-crunkle,_ came the sound from the door. It was that of the doorknob's metal mechanism resisting the feeble efforts of the creature trying to open it.

That was not the sound of Heather successfully putting the key in the gun-case's lock. It was bad enough that she had to stand on tip-toes to just _barely _reach the keyhole of the gun-cabinet. _Damn, why the Hell is everything made for tall people?_

_I'm gonna see if the door's locked, _thought Cheryl. Just then, there was the sound of the metal lock in the wooden case being successfully unlocked. Heather swung open the left side of the cabinet while Cheryl opened the right side. Inside were firearms—_lots _of them.

Six kinds of pistols were along the bottom portion: four magazine-fed, two revolvers. Both revolvers looked to be of the high-powered sort. About six rifles were lined up bottom-to-top. Left and right, along the cabinet doors were rifles and shotguns. There was a submachine gun on racks beneath the pistols. _What about ammo? _Heather opened up the bottom cabinet to find a dozen boxes of plainly labeled hand-sized boxes: bullets for rifles, more bullets for the pistols, shells for shotguns…

_Oh Hell, _thought Heather, _the guy's packing enough to take on a foreign army. A closet Solid Snake fanatic. _She snatched the most familiar-looking shotgun from the cabinet. Cheryl grabbed one of the submachine guns—a weapon larger than a pistol and capable of automatic fire. _There's gotta be ammo for that thing too… _A drawer opened, and there were several long magazines of ammunition for the submachine gun as well.

_Click-clack…_ They opened the side-door of the house. This brought them out to the open night air of this suburb. Off in the faint distance was the sound of that thing. The thing was way over at the front-size of this especially large house. Heather and Cheryl could hear it. Worse, they could sense its presence. They could _feel _the thing's existence.

Thought Heather, _Why the Hell do ugly things like that exist? Why don't they just go back to whatever gross place they came from and stay there? Cheryl, when I see that thing, gimme first shot at it. Yeah, I mean that: shot. _

_You've got it, _responded Cheryl. _Just let me blast the bastard when it's down. That shotgun a 12-gauge? That ought to do it. _Walking so quickly, the girls were nearly around to the front end of this house. The front porch-lights were glaringly on to illuminate the front lawn.

The lights also illuminated the thing at the front door. It was as ugly as it looked, looking a great deal like the man-thing they encountered before—the creature shown them by the figure in the rabbit suit. Except now, another one of those man-creatures was in _this _world: a creature with huge arms and an upper body made of lumpy muscles and covered with a large tattered buttoned-down shirt, the pants made of stitched-together brown leather. Its lopsided head wobbled slightly as it raised an arm to rub a deformed hand agaist the door.

Both girls made a run towards the creature. It was their full intention to make the thing really dead, really soon. By the time the man-creature was able to turn itself to the right, they werer here. Heather raised the shotgun, right hand on the trigger assembly, left hand aiming--bracing the stock of the weapon against her right hip.

"_Opp-opp?_" asked the creature. It took some shuffling steps towards the girls. Both the things lumpy, grotesque arms were raised above its head. Those steps were the only steps it was able to take when there was a blast of sound.

Pistols and rifles may sound like extra-loud firecrackers when fired, but nothing speaks like a shotgun. Nothing _yells _like a shotgun. And there is nothing quite like a shotgun blast from close range to induce very significant traumatic damage to flesh.

The creature somehow stood there for a moment after the blast as if unsure of its own mutilation. An especially large crater had been blasted into the right side of its chest. This made for various once-pulsating internal organs being exposed and dribbling dark fluid that must have been the thing's blood. Still, somehow, the creature turned around—its big-long right arm hanging down. It then tried to quickly hobble-shuffle away.

It was trying to get the Hell away from here. _The Hell you are, _thought Heather. _Slick-clack! _She pumped the shotgun to put another cartridge in the weapon's firing chamber. There was another _blast _of sound in the city night—matched with a huge chunk being taken out of the creature's back. And _that _stopped it—making the creature fall to the lawn.

"_Ham 'blo?_" said the creature or something like that as it lie on the grass. Well, whatever it said, the girls didn't care. Heather walked over to aim the shotgun at the thing's head while Cheryl stepped around to the creature's back. She aimed the submachine gun, the fold-out stock braced against the hard musculature of her abdomen. Then came the rapid-fire popping of the submachine gun and a bright flickering of muzzle-flash as she opened fire—dark life-fluid spattering up all over the place as the dozens of rapid-fire bullets ripped up the thing's flesh. _Cra-cra-cra-cra-cra-cra_…

_Click… Click… _The thing about submachine guns and their immense rate of fire was how they consumed entire magazines of ammunition in just seconds. So Cheryl pulled out the submachine gun's magazine from the bottom, popped in a fresh one, pulled the charging handle to the rear once. The weapon was ready to fire again. It was funny how she always knew how to reload any weapon she'd obtained. Somewhere in the noise was the addition of Heather blasting the man-thing's head with a point-blank _blast _from the shotgun.

When this second magazine was expended, both girls stood there in the silence. Except, it was not really so quiet to them: their ears ringing and a tingling numbness in their hands from the loud and violent gunfire. The thick burnt-meaty smell of burnt gunpowder and fired weaponry filled the air as faint wisps of gray smoke hissed from the muzzles of their weapons: Cheryl's stubby submachine gun and the large hole of Heather's shotgun. Even more silent was the mutilated creature that laid dead on the lawn.


	13. Chapter 13

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

"Evening Falls"

music and vocals by Enya

Chapter 13—So You Say

Some time the next morning, Heather and Cheryl were ready for this day. They already did some exercising—having to get up extra early for that—showered themselves after that, did the teeth-brushing thing. Why exercise? No way were they ever going to be caught weak and slow if any creature resembling something less-than-normal showed up. Now both were dressed in fresh clothes, though the same kind of outfit: close-fitting blue jeans and a sleeveless top that left just a bit of their midriffs bare. They thought of the warm weather and contemplated shorts, decided otherwise. Shorts would be nice, but the decided shortness of those shorts would probably no be taken well by the conservatively dressed teachers at their high school: garments that left legs bare to the point that some of the butt was exposed… No, that would definitely not be a good idea.

Though they somehow had a full night's sleep, the girls did not feel as if everything was quite alright. Something was getting to be wrong. That something probably came from living in a house with crazy parents willing to drug their own daughters and send them to crazy doctors. Rich parents they were, but they were still crazy. Now they would have to go downstairs to face those crazy parents. The girls would also have to remember to not drink any more soda from those people.

They put their purses in their backpacks, grabbed up the backpacks and left their room—traveling the second-story hall of this huge house before getting to the stairs. Both girls heard an unfamiliar voice coming from downstairs, talking to someone. This made them stop. _Whoa, wait a sec… What's that, I wonder, _thought Cheryl. _Is someone here?_

Then came the stupid sound of a typical commercial. _Oh, it's just a radio, _responded Heather. _Must be a pretty pricey one to sound so realistic, though. _They resumed their downward progress on this staircase—quite a grand staircase. This brought them to the sizable, carpeted living room. At some point last night, the parent-figures must have gotten up from their catatonic state to go to bed. Now the living room was the same way as it always was. It was as if nothing happened last night. Both the sofa and armchair were in place, the coffee table and everything where it normally was, and the same was true for the gun-case in the corner. "And now for the morning news," came from behind the kitchen door.

Heather carefully pushed open the door to the kitchen, saw nothing but the kitchen: There was the center counter-top setup with pots and pans hanging on the rack above, with the refrigerator to the far right and cooking ranges to the left, a long counter-top against the far wall near the door. The radio had been set atop a counter-top.

Said the news announcer on the radio, "There is nothing new about this morning's news. In addition to the usual wave of bloody murders and random violence, word came in of an awful massacre in the seemingly typical suburb of Sunset Meadows. Police know who the Hell did it, but they say nothing."

Both girls stared at the radio. Thought Cheryl, N_ews-guys aren't supposed to talk like that! He's supposed to sound all professional and stuff. Since when do news-people talk like they're taking everything personally? _

Continued the voice on the radio, "And the massacre was _especially_ horrific. Multiple shotgun blasts to both the front and back made for the death of the citizen. Yet the murderer did not stop there! No less than sixty-three small-caliber bullets, presumably from a small fully automatic weapon, riddled the corpse of the innocent victim. Police say both the automatic gunfire and the shotgun trauma must have been induced from close range as shell-casings and shotgun cartridges were found close to the corpse.

"For those of you who lack the vocabulary or education to understand what the Hell I just said, that means the bloody murderer stood right next to the victim while shooting away. The murderer was close enough to watch the _blood splatter _after the blasts, close enough to _smell the fear and death _of the victimThey must have stood there and listened to the victim's _final gasps of breath. _It is wholesale slaughter of innocent beings that are not well understood by outsiders. In other news, a substitute teacher in New Jersey was suspected of carrying corpses in a large green…"

Cheryl looked to Heather, dark blue eyes wide open. _Murder victim? That thing wasn't even a person! Not even an animal, _she thought. _You'd think people would be glad that a monster is dead. _

_Or maybe it's _us _they want dead, _thought Heather. _They're drugging us up. At school, they're trying to knock us down. What about those monsters? It's like, those things just appear out of nowhere. Nobody else seems to notice. Maybe they're not noticing the monsters on purpose._

Cheryl looked at Heather, still so much like looking at a mirror version of herself—except in different clothes. This must be what having a twin sister was like. Having someone so close and trustworthy was good in times like this. Funny, even in her previous lives, she never remembered having a real sister…other than some adopted cult members.

She then thought, _In the reality you came from, you went back to Silent Hill with Douglass, right? Remember how Douglass saw some kinds of monsters differently from how you saw them? Well, maybe some people in this reality don't see all the monsters as really being monsters. But you know what? Screw 'em. Those monsters want us dead. We'll just be sure to make them dead first. _She crossed bare arms. _I'm getting cereal._

_And me, the milk, _responded Heather. Amidst the rant of news-chatter of the radio atop the hard and shiny kitchen surface, the girls were walking around this kitchen in getting the necessary things for eating cereal with milk. At some points, the radio began to _hiss-s-s _over with waves of soft-static noise. Every time the radio did that, it made both the girls hesitate. They knew what radio-static sometimes meant. Yet the radio-static always went away—leaving clear chatter.

Heather paused. _Huh… Every so often, I get a kick out of something in this place. This world even has different brand-names for cereal. _She was holding one such box of breakfast product--a strange box with a strange name_. What kind of stuff is "Nosh Bargles?" Sounds too much like "boogers." Ew. Never mind _that _stuff. How about some "Hilltop Space-Ranch Flakes?"_

_Yeah, and what kind of freaky stuff would that be? Well, whatever, _thought back Cheryl. _At least they've got cow's milk in the fridge. I almost expected 'em to have dog-milk or something. You never know with this world. Then again, their version of cows could be five hundred-pound blue insects that spurt milk or something, or something with extra legs. _

Grotesque thoughts aside, they were nevertheless easily able to obtain everything wanted for a passably complete breakfast. It was those _extra _memories helping them out, memories of living in this reality allowing them to walk around this kitchen as if they had lived here their entire lives: a feeling of _déjà vu _being there all the while. Except it was not _their _lives—not really. They were just visiting.

Or they _hoped _that they were just visiting. There were traces of doubt at the backs of their minds, hints and distant echoes of worrisome thoughts that the girls never quite specifically mediated upon. What if this was it? What if they never figured out how the Hell they were going to get back? Those thoughts were ones that made for slight traces of sadness. Just the thought of being in this reality was pretty sad and a little crazy.

This life wasn't even theirs. One minute, they were just living their lives. The next, they're attacked by some cult-freaks and end up in this place that looked an awful lot like their world—except with some things that were wrong. But before they were here, whose life was it? What happened to those other twin-girls whose life they replaced? Or who would want to live this life at all? And what the Hell was up with that monster named Frank, that entity in the bunny suit and silvery death-mask?

They should be happy. The parent-figures were crazy rich. This was an especially big-old house in a swanky suburban neighborhood. And since the parents were crazy rich, the girls always had money from their own stock-portfolios, more in a trust fund… This should be better than living in a gritty old apartment-building in a no-name loser-city and working seven days a week at a tiresome job just because they didn't have all the normal legal paperwork that _normal _people obtained when they were born in _normal _hospitals. Well, that's what happens when a person is reincarnated due to the actions of a cult that had doings with alternate universes. Just because they _should _be happy did not mean that they _were _happy.

They were starting to miss that little apartment in the city, thinking about it as they ate. Heather and Cheryl already had bowls of breakfast on the counter-top and cold milk within reach. They sat atop those wooden stools when darker thoughts began to take hold. Dark thoughts, painful thoughts, they welled up from the backs of their minds to the forefront. These were thoughts of troubles now.

Not their lives, they were still thinking. Maybe no life was worth living right now. It would be pretty easy to find some sleeping pills or something that wouldn't hurt… Death wasn't the end. Maybe everything from this life would not be remembered. That wouldn't be such a bad thing, to forget how Dad was killed by that crazy bitch, her head all full of that mutated religion. Then there was how Mom was dead from that damned disease. Now here they were, a town full of people who thought they were crazy and monsters that thought they should be killed or worse. Everything would probably be better off if they weren't alive anymore. Then there was how that damned news-man would not shut up about bloody murder of seemingly innocent beings.

Cheryl's lips pressed into a thin line as she stared at the wall—her eyesight blurring over. To her left, a teardrop quickly rolled down Heather's right cheek, using a quick hand to dab it away. _Heather, we can't think like this, _thought Cheryl. _Because maybe _that _could be the reason why we've ended up in this mixed-up place. If we don't figure out what's going on, maybe they think we're better off just killing ourselves. Well, we should kill them first, kill the monsters, kill people who try to hurt us, kill and kill. _

_You're right, _communicated Heather. Her own thought-communicated words resounded more strongly. Words in the mind seemed to resound differently when thought with misery—as if the telepathy was assisted by strong emotions. Or could it be that the very same kind of thing that made them able to communicate mind-to-mind fed off of pain? No, it should not be their suffering at all. Red-tinged thoughts of anger came to mind. _Still, we shouldn't suffer. Any time we face one of those ugly things, we should kill it before it even has a chance to cause us hurt. _

_Kill the monsters, _thought Cheryl. The girl had her hands clenched into tight fist--as if clutching a weapon. Not only was she feeling Heather's anger in her own mind, she was feeling her own anger as well. _Kill the monsters. Kill, kill, kill.. Yeah, that's exactly what we'll do. To Hell with what happens after that. _

_We're just trying to survive, _was Heather's response. _Can't blame us for trying to do that._ There was no thoughts passing between the girls, just the sound of the radio—which had actually changed over to the beginnings of a song. She listened to the lyrics, both girls did. Such a beautiful song. It was a change from the damning and hateful words from the news-man:

_When the e-e-evening falls, _

…_and the daylight is fading. _

_From within me calls,_

…_could it be that I a-a-am sleeping? _

_For a moment I strayed,_

…_then it holds me com-plete-ly…_

_Close to home, I can-not say._

_Close to home, feeling so-o-o fa-a-ar away…_

So caught up in their own problems, so full of bitterness and fear, the girls had been approaching all of this with toughness and attitude. They only reserved tenderness and care for each other. It was because the rest of this crazy world seemed to so Hell-bent on driving _them _crazy with it. Now there was this wonderful and melodious song absolutely flowing from the speakers of that radio. They were paused in their kitchen-doings---paused like mannequins.

_As I walked the road,_

…_there before me, a shadow._

_From another world, _

…_where no other can follow!_

_Carry me-e-e-e to my own,_

…_to where I can cross over._

_Close to home, I can-not say._

_Close to home, feeling so-o-o fa-a-ar away…_

They sank down to the floor on opposite sides of the kitchen, Heather by the sink, Cheryl over by the door leading to the living room. Both were huddled with backs to hard kitchen surfaces, their knees drawn up close to their chests and arms crossed tightly. The unfairness of it all was beginning to get to them. What was it that they had done to deserve ending up in this slow and silent hell of a world? Maybe there still _was _a god. And just maybe, that god hated them. Instead of having them suffer directly and immediately, that god—that unseen force—was seeking to wear them down with random and haphazard encounters with other-worldly creatures that were so grotesque and distorted that they should not even exist, did not even deserve to exist.

_Why? _It was a huge question of a word. As they felt their faces grow hot and felt their eyesight blur over with tears, that huge and misery laden question of _why _was still in their minds. _Why _was that unseen force doing this to them? _Why _were they born again…and again…under not-so-normal circumstances? It made for them living lives always having to worry about something or someone trying to approach them and make them dead, or make them crazy.

_Maybe it doesn't have to be this way, _thought Cheryl. Dark thoughts came to mind. There were knives in the kitchen drawers. It would have to be a smooth-edged blade, though: Serrated edges would hurt too much. They could go upstairs and lie down in the shower's tub and do it-- first one wrist, then the other. Or maybe one wrist would do, because it would be hard to cut with the cut one. They could help each other. And the tub would catch the blood as it flowed from their bodies. It would be just like falling asleep after that…

_Fzzt, fwsh-h-h-h…! _Midway through these thoughts, both girls became aware of the angry and aggressive sounds of static coming from the radio. The radio was making more of _those _sounds again… It seemed to be like typical interference. There was that hissing and buzzing all mixed in with it. Only _that _kind of interference made _that _sort of noises. That radio's speaker had all the hissing and occasional squealing typical of a bad station or poor tuning or a weak frequency. But the only way that the radio would begin making that particular set of noises was when _something _was nearby—something that did not belong in this world.

_Bzzt! Wink-flicker, _went the lights. Trouble was, the kitchen lights were not even on. The girls could feel the edges of a headache. _He's coming, _thought Heather. _It's like we can't get away from that six-foot bastard! _As if in response to that negative comment, an extra tinge of headache made her wince. "Ow!" she exclaimed. Another burst of headache-pain resonated in both girls' heads. There was an _intense glare of light from the windows. _

Both thought it was a nuclear flash or something, making Heather scramble across the kitchen to be by Cheryl as the lights were going crazy. This _was _a world where Canada nuked part of America. Who knows what the Hell just happened now? At least they would not have to do themselves in now. They waited for the final searing glare of hard radiation and intense white glow that would overcome everything and incinerate them.

It did not happen. That glare of light died down, and the lights stopped going crazy. There was instead the sound of a strong breeze blowing outside the window—a cool breeze. The radio-static made a slow wave of static… as _he_ appeared. It was Frank: the six-foot being in the silvery metal death-mask and full-body fluffy bunny suit.

Both girls stood up with their backs to the kitchen wall near the door to the living room. _You know the old saying, _thought Cheryl. _Speak of the devil, and he appears. Except I don't think the people who thought up that saying had rabbits in mind—especially six-foot bunny suits and death-mask. They'd probably never see rabbits the same way again after seeing this big bastard. _

…

2.

…

_Bastard _was a word that was coming into increasing use between the girls. The official definition of that rather derogatory word was this: One born illegitimately, out of the confines of a legal marriage. Yet modern times saw the birth of many such individuals in modern times, being born out of wedlock was an especially common occurrence. Single motherhood ceased to be a rarity. The negativity did not grow out of being born out of wedlock: the shame and stigma of such status gone in that sense. However, modern times instead saw the term itself _bastard _as retaining the less-than-savory worth, being a somewhat naughty verbal item used in describing someone of less-than-desirable company. Since Cheryl and Heather were _both _born out of wedlock—and not necessarily born with a father's input—did that make _them _bastards?

It certainly did in the old way. Hopefully, they were not _bastards _in the new sense of the word. But they were certainly sure that the creature wearing the silvery death mask and covering its body with a bunny suit, it was a _bastard _in both the old way (i.e. born out of wedlock) _and_ in the new way (i.e. less-than-desirable company). Since that particular _bastard _showed up more often now, they were beginning to think the word _bastard _just as frequently.

Then again, did trans-dimensional entities like Frank _have _marriage? Maybe he was spawned in some kind of alternate-reality factory. Or maybe he was given that stupid bunny suit as a birthday present. There was also the idea that Frank could have been human at some point—_ha-ha, _not that way. Except, the girls were not especially sure.

The bastard, the entity, was standing here right now. And whenever that entity communicated, its thoughts came straight to both girls' minds—as if it was communicating to one person. Also true was how the entity's thoughts came across extra-clear and in an echoed sort of way. Those metal bunny-ears of the silvered death-mask probably made for some especially good reception of transmitted thoughts, too. Heather had the thought of maybe trying to turn that rabbit-thing's ears left and right, then asking Frank if he could pick up the alternate reality version of WCIN—one of her favorite radio stations since it played the indie-sounding soft-rock radio she liked to listen to, very often with female vocalists and far-out experimental melodies.

The thing in the rabbit-suit bowed its head, the metal ears of the silvery skeletal death-mask exaggerating the tilt. It only added to the crazy notion of the entity tuning in on something. Maybe _Frank _listened to his own favorite radio stations when he was not warping in and out of various planes of existence. Did the silvery death-mask include those surround-sound earphones that would be invented about twenty or so years from now? Maybe those headphones also cancelled out whatever Hellish sounds there were between dimensions, too.

_They consume pain, _came the thought, interrupting Heather's free-associating thought. The thought came across _especially _clearly. Yes, it was certainly the metal bunny ears. _Redness is how they take nutrition._

Cheryl went to lean against the part of the kitchen wall, left of the door that went into the living room. Heather did the same on the other side, her arms over her midsection. _You know, _thought the girl on the right, _I could ask you when all of this is going to stop, but I know you'll just whack us with some cryptic answer that could mean half of anything_. _So I'll just start easy. Who are _they _you keep talking about?_

The entity's thought-communicated response was, nevertheless, as cryptic as Heather did not want it to be. _You see them every day, but you cannot see them every day. _An ominous sound of thunder came out of somewhere. _They live._

To that, Cheryl thought another question as she stared into those bulging chrome eye-pieces of the rabbit-figure's death-mask. _You said something about them feeding off of suffering. I thought monsters ate each other or something. Those big ugly things can't just get their daily recommended allowance of vitamins and minerals off of bad feelings. That is, unless they drink tears or something… Ick._

_In different worlds, the rules are different, _came the entity's response. _Thoughts are things at some level. _The entity then swayed to the right. _The things are also real at some level. You should try to understand. It is important to the town._

Heather stood away from the wall and put hands on jeans-covered hips, _Understand what! That we're probably going nuts? And from what you're telling us, this is all supposed to make some kind of sense. Just try to understand and everything can be alright, is that it? Look, my Dad used to say the same damned thing. Guess what? He was murdered. _

Cheryl added to Heather's sentiment. _Sometimes, trying to understand every damned thing all the time can get pretty grating. So like, we're just supposed to go along with this crazy mess? Just lay down own our backs, spread our legs and take it? The Hell we will!_

_Eh-hah! _That figure in the rabbit costume made that exclamation again—that noise that could really mean anything. _The time will come again when you understand. You have understood before. You will do the same. _

To that, Cheryl smirked. She then thought, _You know what? Another sort of person said something like that before, that talk about understanding stuff some day. She's dead too. Is it me, or is it that all the advice you've got was ripped from the mouths of dead people? It's all things from people who've gotten themselves slaughtered somehow. Well, Frank, it seems to me that maybe listening to you might get a girl killed. _

To that, the being in the bunny and death-mask suit seemed to…darken. Whatever invisible energy source or light-source that made the entity visible, it turned down in intensity. The living-room lights remained the same. Everything else was at the same level of illumination. It was just the entity that became more darkened by shadow—though he cast no shadow himself. He bowed his deathmask-covered head. _It would not be the first time, time and time again It is the way…of the Circle. I cannot make the pain stop. I'm so sorry… _

_Bzzt, wink-flicker! _That was the light from the kitchen ceiling suddenly flickering on and making odd buzzing sounds before going dark again. There was the sound of a heavy breeze outside. Then the entity was gone, vanishing from this reality.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Cheryl, using her voice this time. She resumed emotional control of herself, remembered the voice of her mind. _We're not done with you yet. Get back here! _Both girls strode over to where the entity had been.

He was not at all there. Nor was there any solid physical evidence of him being there. But they did feel an intensely cold spot in the air where he was standing here in the kitchen. It was as if he had been sucking heat or something, or as if there was a hole in the universe where the heat was drained. Whichever the case, it was cold enough for the girls to step back and rub their arms, which were bare because of their choice of outfits.

_One of these days, we're going to figure out how the Hell he does that, _thought Heather. _Then we'll track him down in whatever world he comes from and shoot him in the eye or something. You know, is that freaky thing in the bunny suit even on our side? He ran like a loser when we told 'em that all his advice seems to come from people who got themselves killed._

_Same thing about Dad, too, _added Cheryl. _He was always trying to be responsible for us no matter what we did, even after Mom died. He just pretty much sat back and let me smoke and get drunk. He still cared for us even when we got in trouble with the law, too. One night, I got really bent and nearly set my bed on fire. _She frowned. _Yeah, you know all this, since your life was exactly like mine. Now I really hate fire. Quit smoking for good after that._

_Yeah, same here, _agreed Heather. _Speaking of responsibility… _She looked at the stopped clock above the sit-down counter against the far wall: The skinny hand of the clock that counted seconds was stopped—had been stopped all this time. Only when Heather stared at it did it start ticking again. _Hey! Did you see that! That thing just started up again out of nowhere._

Thought Cheryl, _It's like no time passed when Frank appeared. What does that mean? _She turned to face Heather, looking into the eyes of someone who looked exactly like herself. _Frank _was _here. He was saying those things to us. Like, how can something take _no _time to happen? Everything is supposed to take time to happen._

Heather shook her head. _Well, maybe taking no time was exactly what happened, _she communicated to Cheryl. _The more I think about that thing in the bunny suit, the more I'm starting to get worried. He appears out of nowhere at any time….so to speak. And he appears almost anywhere. If he can do that, it's like he can probably make anything happen. Frank must not be an ordinary monster. _

Cheryl thought something else. _Why would he need us? If that thing wearing the bunny suit can do anything, he wouldn't need to take two girls and suck 'em back to an alternate past. Why did it bring us to this alternate past? Something's not right about this._

The kitchen-clock's ticking interrupted the silence. _Things won't be right if we don't catch the bus to school, either, _added Heather. _Hmmph_… _We ought to have plenty of time if we had ourselves a quick breakfast and head out for the bus-stop. If we're going to be in this world a while, we may as well keep playing our role—as stupid as it is._ As they picked up the items used for breakfast, they were sure of avoiding that spot.

…

Some other time that morning, a night-colored limousine drove and ambled through the nearly emptied streets of the downtown area. It was a weekday. Most vehicles were parked at the sides as people were at work. Most all of this town consisted of opulent suburban homes nestled amongst trees, plenty of forests in between. Yet the downtown area boasted grand, stately buildings that sometimes took up half-blocks of space, buildings made of traditional brick-work and with gabled roofs. Such buildings housed such institutions as the Town Hall, the commerce board, the police station, and the public library. Both the town's seat of government and the public library housed documents on the town's official history.

That night-colored limousine pulled up to the grandiose structure of Town Hall and stopped right up front. The rather old-looking cars parked along both sides of this downtown street made for there being no parking space for the long-car. No problem, it simply stayed parked in the middle of this street. Everyone in this town knew the significance of the passenger in that vehicle and would therefore not dare to approach it with any sort of danger. They would not even think of doing so.

Both doors at the front of the limousine opened up. Two men in red suits walked around back to flank the rearmost door of the vehicle. One reached down to open the door while the other stood up straight. The opened door revealed the reclining figure within—a figure of beauty clad in clinging white silk.

It was _her. _Alessa was swathed in another white silk gown. This one was with a neckline open beyond her sternum to reveal the place between upright breasts, more of her perfect skin. The way the gown clung close to the rest of her body, it was clear that the rest of her was just as pleasing to look at—hips flaring outwards from the flat abdomen beneath the bosom, a lean torso, long slender arms ending in fine fingers. As for her long dark hair, it was combed away from her slim column of a neck to flow behind her shoulders and back. The name _Alessa_ certainly belonged to such a beautiful being. It was this vision of beauty and nubile womanhood that slid out of this vehicle.

Alessa's bare feet touched pavement, her body upright as wind caressed her figure and blew her silken night-colored tresses. Her large dark eyes seemed to take in all of the view and seeing more than merely that. Before her was Town Hall. At ground level were two wooden doors at the top of eleven stone stairs—the stairs divided in the middle by a red rail. Those wooden doors opened outward, folded outwards as Alessa ascended the stairs. This godly figure of nubile womanhood entered the grand building.

…

Somewhere on the third floor of this grand building, there was a long meeting room large enough to accommodate a long executive's table that could seat sixty people—thirty per side and one at each end. Diaphanous red curtains flowed along the windows along the left side of the room. It was the west side. Such promised an amazing views during the burning sunsets over the land. The long table inside of this room had a darker red carpet of deep silk pile. Wood paneling along the rest of the walls gave the room an older, more museum-like feel. Regularly placed dark paintings added to that feeling while two white chandeliers added to the daytime light shining through the window.

First came men in gray business suits and black sunglasses. Two of them had strong holds on both arms of a tan-skinned man dressed in blue work-clothes. His shoulder-length dark hair was the only vaguely feminine touch about him. He otherwise looked immensely masculine and physically strong, huge hands at the ends of thick arms and with a broad chest. The tan-skinned man's blue work-shirt and sturdy blue slacks suitable for industrial work. As strong as he was, he could not stand. The man had been mistreated by his captors and could barely stand. There was nevertheless something strong and noble about him.

They kept the man standing. Apparently, their grips on the big man's arms was the only thing Everyone was standing, looking stiff as mannequins. But all eyes turned to the doors. They were waiting. Everyone and everything was quiet. It was as if sound was being drained from the air.

There was the sound of a breeze… In stepped the exquisitely beautiful figure. Her long-legged stride took her to the head of the table and quickly sat down. Everyone else sat only then while keeping their eyes on her. A vision of porcelain-skinned beauty with a body swathed in white silk, her night-colored hair flowing back and away from a delicate and round face, Alessa was mistress and the primary focus of all attention.

As for the secondary focus of attention, the tan-skinned strong man, they dumped him in one of the seats. He flopped somewhat like a man-sized rag doll yet was able to stay upright, his wood-brown eyes downcast. A slight cough from deep within his chest produced a trickle of blood. Then he stared at the feminine figure. It was not a polite stare. He knew what lay beneath the appearance of physical beauty.

Alessa stared back. Her voice was still sweetly beautiful with its light and delicate accent. Still, there was some kind of hatred. "I shall speak to you in a way you can comprehend. Do you in fact understand…? Yes, you do understand. Now we commence discussion of the point at hand." The beautiful midnight-haired woman pointed, a long slender arm with an outstretched and accusing finger. "_You _do not belong in this land. _You _are an outsider and intruder. What are _you _doing here? The doings of this land are not of concern to the likes of _you_." That slender limb lowered, the accusing finger going down with it.

Another _cough,_ and the tan-skinned man spoke—his voice low and clear despite his suffering. It was as if his voice was now apart from his body. His voice sounded out with him saying, "There is a great sickness here. It is soaked into the land itself. Such evil is not normal and must not exist. The sickness of the land is so terrible that it even makes for a faint mist that one can see even on a clear day. The sickness is not of this world. It must be removed and destroyed, like diseased trees!" The man suddenly stood in showing a burst of strength and lurched in Alessa's direction.

Six of those men in gray suits grabbed the tan-skinned man in blue. They hit him, again and again… Their fists crumpled his abdomen. More slammed into his ribs—some of those ribs already cracked. While some of the blows made for thumping sounds of meat, others made cracking sounds. Only when the tan-skinned man in blue work-clothes slumped to sit down did they stop. He was bleeding now.

Alessa tilted her head to the left. Her voice came with the sweetest sounds of sympathy. "Oh, you poor man! So it is _destruction _that you desire? So be it. Such is easily granted." There was a slight gesture of her left hand.

_Fwoomph… _The figure of the tan-skinned man in blue work-clothes was instantly alive with fire, lost in the bright yellow burning. Soon this room was filled with the light and smell of burning human flesh as the smoke billowed towards the ceiling. In the flames, the figure raised a blackening arm to point at Alessa, the burning head raised. "The sickness shall not spread beyond this place in four dimensions," came the man's voice…before he lowered his arm and bowed his head.

The fire continued burning, consuming the corpse of the defeated man. Thick sounds of fire still kept going as he alone kept alight. Somewhere in the midst of the flames, there was that man's laughter. And the echoes of that laughter did not fade off until long after the figure was a blackened corpse. The brightness of the flames glinted in Alessa's dark eyes and shimmered off of her silken white gown.


	14. Chapter 14

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 14—Love Reprieve

_You know, it makes me think about maybe watching our mouths, _thought Heather. Her lean bare arms crossed as she and Cheryl watched the yellow school bus rumble off. _That's only the second time we were able to ride that yellow cheesebox-chariot home since we've been here. And it's the second time we've been booted off. _

_Yeah, two for two. That's not a good record, not even for us, _mentally added Cheryl. Also true was her maybe reconsidering wearing outfits of this sort. Tight jeans and sleeveless tops would not go too well with rainy weather. How the Hell were they supposed to know that the weather was going to turn iron-gray with thick, scary looking rain-clouds today? The weather was just fine this morning. It was probably going to rain especially soon. Knowing their luck, it would likely rain on their way home. They were able to take comfort in the fact that the air was unusually warm—the humidity level high enough just prior to the rain itself.

_Well, whatever. Guess we'd better start hoofing it home now, _thought Heather. That thought in both their minds, they started the walk home. _At least we're about a block closer this time. If we maybe didn't make that bitch throw up. _She smiled. _No, it was worth it. I know it's a terrible thought…_

_Don't think I'd disagree, _thought back Cheryl. _We're pretty much straight-up copies of each other. _She paused and reconsidered her choice of words. _Well, maybe "straight" isn't exactly the right word, if you know what I mean. _

The sentiment brought a blush to Heather's cheeks, a warm sort of feeling inside her. _Damn, it's been a long while, _she thought. _I'm starting to feel it. It's easy to feel chaste and careless about that kind of talk normally. But recently… _

_I know what you mean, _responded Cheryl, some color coming to her face as well. _I really do… _Being telepathically linked to somebody made that more than just an off-handed comment. Not only could both girls communicate words through thoughts, they could also feel traces of each other's emotions. And right now, it was making feel a bit on the uncomfortable side.

So they walked. That rain did not stop coming down until they were half a block's distance from the place they called home. First came a drizzle to moisten their hair and the shoulders of their tank-tops. Then came a sudden gushing downpour from the gray sky. Thought Heather, _Jeez! It's like all the clouds are taking a major drunk-piss all at once! _Both girls used fingers to pull lengths of their blonde hair away from their eyes before making a run for the huge house. Cheryl was quick with the house-key as they entered right through the front door for once. Every time they came through the kitchen, something wrong happened.

…

They entered the well-furnished living room, the lights turned on since it was clouded outside. The main lights of the living-room must have been on all day. Lights on and no one being home, that was a waste. They still frowned at the idea of wasting electricity as if they were still back at the apartment and had to help pay the electric bill. Then again, the parent-figures were _oozingly_ rich, and the _oozingly_ rich never had to worry about something so basic as electric bills.

The paper on the coffee table was not an electric bill. Cheryl picked it up. _Hey, it's a letter from…guess who? It's from our dear mother-figure Alessa. The bitch… _Heather could sense the words in Cheryl's mind. _Well, anyway, says that she and the father-figure are going to be away for a while—the weekend. _

_Dear Daughters:_

_I shall be away on business for the remainder of the weekend. It seems that something questionable is occurring at the town's borderlands. Such is a town-wide matter. I therefore shall have to divert a great deal of my attention to the issue. Or shall it be said that they are 'issues,' more than one problem? In any case, one can see the difficulty incurred, why I shall be away._

_In which case, you are expected to behave in a proper and lawful manner. You do have secondary command of the house's resources in my absence--and your father's absence. The house-cleaning crew shall not arrive until Sunday. Until then, upon Friday evening, a caretaker shall be delivered to the house. The caretaker shall make itself known for your well-being. Do take care. You are proper ladies and must always act thusly._

_--Mother _

_A caretaker, _thought Cheryl_. It's going to be a babysitter! What the Hell do we need a babysitter for? We're legally adults! So what if they think we've got…problems? Still, this place is all to ourselves._

Heather then raised her right fist. _Awesome! It's no-o-o parents! Until that babysitter gets here, we can party like nobody's business! That and we don't have any real homework to deal with. _She lowered that enthusiastic fist. _Then again, it's going to be pretty annoying being soaking wet and trying to get wasted. _

Cheryl enthusiastically agreed, her communicated thought full of enthusiasm. _Hell yeah! It's like, all the time, there's somebody lording over us. Around here, it's those psycho parent-figures. At school, there are those teachers and stuff. Let's change clothes and then go party! _

They both grinned like maniacs in running up the grand staircase that went to the huge house's second floor. Since this was an especially large house, the trip upwards took some time. But that enthusiasm gave them the spurred energy needed to go all the way up at full speed. They also ran down the hall and to their bedroom.

…

Upstairs in their bedroom, they dumped their backpacks to the floor. They then both went for the same closet on the right side of the room. Why not, since they both wore the same clothing size. There, they began to strip off wet clothes. Off came the wet sneakers. It took some effort to peel off the soaked jeans next, coming off like a second skin. They flipped off the shirts, also going to piles on the floor. Last came bras and panties. Only when they were naked of all wet clothing did they open both doors of the closet.

Looking at the closeted clothes, hands on wet hips, they were both aware of their nakedness. Heather averted her eyes from the row of similar-looking outfits, instead looking at Cheryl. It was indeed true that Cheryl was _exactly _like her: the same petite stature, the same lean and slightly athletic body-type they maintained with little exercise, maybe a slightly starved sort of look… Both Cheryl and herself had the same strong-looking legs, flat and hard abdomens. Her torso showed musculature and ribs, breasts that were just big enough. With that came lean arms went with that, her neck with fine musculature and a round sort of face with broad cheeks, framed and topped with blonde hair. Well, so they both dyed their hair? It went with naturally blue eyes, maybe more so than the unusually dark hair they were born with. Heather liked looking at Cheryl.

Cheryl turned to look at Heather, standing here. There was a slight smile on her lips, but it was one of acceptance and pleased interest rather than one of cynicism—a real smile. _Hold still a sec, Heather. I want to try something, _she communicated. Her left hand went to Heather's right shoulder. She then leaned forward and tilted her head to the left, angling her mouth.

The kiss was soft and tentative… She stood away again. Her eyes were wide open. _Hmmph, like I thought it'd be. A little scary, but a little exciting, too._

It was true. Being kissed by Cheryl was like being simultaneously kissed by another girl and being kissed by herself at the same time. It was partially because Cheryl was an exact physical and cosmic double of herself. And it was because it was like Heather was inside Cheryl's mind when the kiss happened. Heather had felt Cheryl's parted lips on her own. Yet she also felt…Cheryl's feelings as she kissed. It felt very good. But still…

_This could be wrong, _thought Heather to Cheryl. _If not against some kind of law, it could still be wrong. We're supposed to be sisters or something in this world. _She put her hand on Cheryl's left hand, resting on her shoulder and feeling warm, smooth—so warm…. Her eyes closed. _Like, I so-o-o want to do something. I'm so damned wet right now I could scream. _

_You know what? Fuck it! We're both nineteen. We're not children, _thought back Cheryl. _We're already declared crazy. And I can't sense the parent-figures in this house._ She took a step closer. _Why should we deny ourselves what we both want?_

_Yeah, just fuck, _came Heather's response. She looked past Cheryl, looking at the door, watched it slam shut without her having to touch it. It was only something vaguely surprising, a thought of, _Did_ _I just do that? _Yet apparently, she just did. Also true was how there was something more pressing right now. Heather wanted love. She wanted it right now.

They both walked to the bed, kissing hungrily and feeling along the way. What soon followed was a time of prolonged loving and stroking. It truly had been such a very long time. Far and away from where they came from, they were cut off from any potential relationships. Even then, it had been a very long time since they had close companionship of the carnal sort. Both only made small noises of pleasure, but the roaring emotions within their minds were much more enthusiastic. Heather's lips were on Cheryl's abdomen. Then they went farther down, down into a very good feeling. From there, they denied each other nothing. It was enjoyment of each other's bodies, every which way they could. All the while, they also felt each other's pleasure resonating within their own minds. The hours drifted onwards into a dark euphoria of their own making…

…

2.

…

Cheryl opened her eyes to look up at the bedroom ceiling, feeling her left hand in Heather's right. They were both still naked, lying in bed amongst a tangle of sheets. Both their heads of blonde hair were in a similar state of dishevelment. The warmth of the bedroom was only slightly aided by the furnace, the bed still warm from their physical excesses as sunset-colored light glowed in from the window. At least something _good _happened to them for once. It made them feel good. Even after, they were feeling good. They turned their heads to each other and looked at each other in this low light. It had been noon when they began their activity.

Now it was getting to sunset… Heather suddenly frowned as an irritating thought came to mind. _Oh Hell…! That house-sitting bitch is going to be here any minute, huh? _Only with the greatest of care did she gently disentangle the fingers of her right hand from Cheryl's left. The big electronic clock had red LED numbers glowing in the darkness.

_6:03, _thought Cheryl, seeing the clock's numbers through Heather's mind. _Yeah, she could be here right now. It wouldn't do for a babysitter to come in and find the two daughters of the house naked and having something they maybe ought not have been doing. _

_Like what, shooting up and smoking dope? Yeah, okay…let's hurry up and hide the dope, _returned Heather's thoughts. _Except I wish the day comes when we don't have to hide anything about each other. What would they do in this world if they found out and decided to punish us? _Extra memories came to mind—thoughts of a form of execution not practiced since the Middle Ages in Heather's reality. _Ick._ _They do something worse. _

Cheryl sighed… She gave Heather a quick kiss before moving over to the right side of the bed. _Well, whatever. It'd be for a good cause. May as well get up and get dressed now, _she communicated. _At least this world has a pretty decent set of outfits for us. They could have filled up the drawers and stuff with religious clothes or something._

Heather watched the lithe, naked figure of Cheryl cross the room and go over to the dresser-drawers. There was almost no sound as that other girl padded across the carpeted floor on bare feet. Then came the sound of a second-topmost wooden drawer opening as she reached for panties and brassiere to slip on. The dim and low sunset-colored lighting from the window only made her seem more beautiful, low lighting accentuating the long firm shapes of her legs and the firm smooth flatness of her abdomen and the lean musculature of her back as her arms moved in dressing herself… Heather wanted to kiss her. Hell, she wanted to lick her. She could sense the same in Cheryl's mind.

No, they had to get ready. As much as Heather wanted to do Cheryl again, she went over to the other side of the bedroom and also began dressing herself. She found underclothes in the right drawer even in the low lighting coming from the window, being familiar with this place. There were plenty of silk panties, but she went with the cotton kind. Next came a typical brassiere… Finally came on a pair of footie socks, the kind to wear with canvas sneakers.

Both girls then went to the closets on their respective sides of this large bedroom to get on outfits of jeans and sleeveless tops. Trouble was how there was nothing but the really tight-fitting kinds of jeans. Well, whatever. At least the tank-tops were right—fitting and pulled down to fit snugly and baring just a strip of their flat midriffs all around. Cheryl found their wet clothes—still on the floor—and picked them up while Heather obtained two hairbrushes. _Our hair is a mess_.

They then left this bedroom to travel the second-story hall in going to the bathroom. More sunset-colored light glowed into the bathroom, shining through the marbled glass of the bathroom. Cheryl dumped the clothes in the hamper. _The light's gonna have to come on, _came the warning thought.

_Click! _Bright white light glared in, seemingly harsh to their eyes so long in low light. They moved over to the large bathroom mirror and began brushing their hair. Their hairstyle was one that normally had a somewhat tousled look to it to begin with. Yet there was a difference between the _somewhat tousled _look…and _wild bedroom abandon _look

Thank goodness they didn't wear makeup today: The stuff would have been all over each other and would have only led to more questions. They had not worn much in the way of cosmetics since their fathers had been killed. Why bother? They were not out looking for dates and mates too often. And the stuff could be expensive—especially when one worked jobs that paid less than the minimum wage.

Cheryl and Heather both were brushing and patting the backs of their heads, both looking into the mirror and trying to get it right when there was a grandiose chime of bells from downstairs—from the living room. Seconds later came the _click-clomp _sound of the living-room door opening and closing. What, did the parent-figures give the babysitter a house key? Such was apparently the case. Cheryl and Heather quickly put down their hairbrushes and gave final shakes and pats to their heads of hair before leaving this bathroom, turning off the light.

…

Their light footsteps took them down the staircase. The caretaker-nanny—or overseer, depending on one's point-of-view—was still by the door. It was a tall, thin, blonde-haired young woman in black skirt and white blouse, a light long leather coat worn over. Her back turned to put her coat on the coat-rack, they saw that her honey-blonde hair went just below her thin shoulders. Maybe the young woman was pretty by some standards, but there was an artificial sort of sharpness to her movements.

The young woman turned to face Heather and Cheryl. "Good evening, you two. You both may be legally adults, if barely, yet I remain your nanny," she said, hands on skirted hips. "Your parents left you as my charges. I am studying law at the moment, and the implications are obvious considering your…condition. Your guardians and the law deem it fit that you are observed by a third party—meaning, myself."

_This lady looks like a younger relative to that Claudia-bitch, _thought Cheryl. She crossed her arms while Heather spoke. Saying, "Yeah? 'Our condition,' you say? Well, we're no more crazy than the rest of the people around here. What kind of world has people eating stuff called 'Nosh Bargles?' And what's going on with the milk? Why's it taste a little off? Is that _really _cow's milk sold in the stores around here?"

The young blonde nanny stood up a little straighter—if that was possible. Her manner of standing was especially poised as it was. "I can begin to comprehend the randomness of your manner of speaking. However, such fails to make a great deal of sense. In what way do dairy products relate to the topic at hand?"

"Jeez, is your brain stiff or what!" asked Cheryl. "We're talking about reality. We're talking about _this _reality—or whatever it is. First, I though that being stuck in 1988 was going to suck. All the technology is, like, all clunky and square. Look at the size of that VCR! Eraserhead in that thing alone must weigh as much as a human head. It must put enough pressure on the Earth's tectonic plates to maybe help cause quakes in California!"

"Your manner of speech cannot confuse me. I am aware of your psychological status," said the tall blonde woman. "Therefore, I was instructed to be especially wary of devious behavior. Your parents were also sure to see to my preparation with certain measures of recourse. The emphasis is upon the word _recourse._"

Heather grinned. "What's that mean? Are you gonna bend us over your knee and spank us? You don't want to do _that, _'cause the vibrations would start shaking that VCR. That big clunky '80s VCR will be responsible for making Hollywood get swallowed up in an Earthquake."

"Hey yeah! I've got an idea. Let's invent DVD players to save Hollywood… No, wait. Hollywood is going broke, and people are blaming pirates, DVD players and some guy named Uwe Boll… Ick, that name's like some kind of boll weevil. He sure likes his cotton, likes _ruining _it. Hollywood blames pirates for losing money instead of losers like Boll."

"But pirates are the coolest!" cheered Cheryl. "Ooh! Like, they've got those far-out peg-legs and those eye-patches covering gnarly eye-sockets. It must be a real bitch to try itching your back with those hooks-for-hands and stuff. Like _Edward Scissorhands_… Is that movie even out yet? I hope not. That flick is just about as bad as being nuked by Canadians."

By this point, the young blonde nanny had reached into the right pocket of her black skirt. The girls did not even notice the garment having pockets at all. Out came a black, brick-like object with the thickness of a pinky-finger's length and longer than a hand—boxy and rectangular in design. It took Cheryl and Heather seconds to realize what it was: not a pistol or other weapon, not even a taser… That clunky rectangular thing was…a cellular phone!

_Like, really! _Cheryl tightly pressed her lips together, keeping in a ready-to-burst giggle while Heather turned her head to the right to keep herself from even looking at the primitive device. Just a look would make her laugh. She thought to Cheryl, _Is she for real? That thing looks like it's gonna contact NASA's nearest space shuttle. _

"Do you plan on hitting us over the head with that?" asked Cheryl. "Careful! That thing is so big and clunky I'm surprised its existence doesn't yank a hole in the time-space continuum. Wave that thing around, and you'll probably open up a hole that sucks us into an alternate reality where we'd get our fingers chopped up by mutant lobsters. _Then _how could we put bullets in our ears to keep out your voice? We want to keep ourselves from going deaf so when we go to movie theaters with werewolves and hear them howl."

"_Cease this abhorrent behavior!_" shouted the young blonde nanny. Clutching the cellular phone, she declared, "_This _portable telephone has the psychiatric ward of Sunset Meadows Central Hospital on automatic dial." A slow and angry twist of her left hand made all the buttons on the front of the phone face Cheryl and Heather. One of the buttons on the telephone was a florescent orange-red color. "One simply gives a flick _this _switch to turn on the telephone. Then one gives a _press _of this prominently colored button. Before long, you two will be sedated, strapped down and restrained to such an extent that you will not even be able to change the diapers they place upon you! Do you understand!"

A cold feeling suddenly swept both girls' midsections. What came to minds were memories of a past life. These were like the extra memories given to them when they appeared in this reality but worse. The extra memories of this reality were helpful. Those past-life memories were a great deal worse. That hospital room was beneath the hospital's basement. They were locked in the room, not as if they could get up to leave. There was so much pain as something toxic was growing inside of them. Thank goodness it was not their life.

Yet something like it could be their life again. This nanny was standing here with that big, stupid-looking portable phone-thing. She already flicked the _on _switch. That button gets pressed, and it was going to be a drug-induced La-La Land for both of them as a hoard of big burly guys in white clothes wrestled them down and shot them up full of happy drugs. The idea of being held down while things were stuck into their bodies was a dark and horrible one.

Heather rolled her eyes. "_Ugh_… Alright! Just cool it. Nobody wants trouble. We were just fooling around. It's not like you people haven't been talking in riddles to us sometimes. Give us a break, will you?" _And we don't want you calling on Canada_ _for another nuke-strike, either._

"So what do you want from us?" voiced Cheryl. "We're just standing here right now. We even brushed our hair up all nice so we wouldn't offend you. But we just can't stand up all day. Are we allowed to sit down?"


	15. Chapter 15

Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead 

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 15: Suffer The Child

It so turned out that the nanny allowed Cheryl and Heather to do more than just sit down. They were allowed to sit down on the sofa—so long as they sat with the _proper poise _befitting _young ladies of Society. _Yes, and the way she said it, the word _Society _really did have a capital _S_, as in _High Society. _It was that upper-crust crap about people of higher breeding and money, being people of refinement… Well, whatever. Also true was how they were allowed to read anything they so happened to have had stashed up in their bedroom shelves, even if the nanny did not necessarily approve of their choice of reading material: dark, ominous texts of the occult and metaphysical subject matter. Yes, and they _deliberately _chose what they chose simply to spite her. Then the young nanny ordered them to stay in the living room. Again, _whatever _was the tone: They would just have to put up with this crap.

Now this was the scene. Light classical music played on the living room stereo because the nanny wanted it that way. Heather and Cheryl were sitting side-by-side on the sofa. They sat with knees together and their backs straight. Both were reading dark books that had titles written in red. _Necronomicon _was what Heather was reading, while Cheryl had her eyes into _Lost Gods of Forgotten Times. _All the while, the nanny was sitting in the armchair and looking at them both. The nanny herself sat with back straight, knees together, her chin up while her blue eyes stared at the twins.

_Get this, _communicated Cheryl to Heather. _I'm reading about this old god-figure called Moloch. He was something they worshipped in the Middle East, like, over two thousand years ago. What they did to worship him was to make this big hollow statue-thing with a furnace in its belly. Then they took babies and threw 'em right into the statue thing's furnace part._

_Yeah, it's the psycho things people do for religion, _communicated Heather. _Hey, I'm reading this book here and it seems like the real deal. Back in my world, the _Necronomicon _didn't really exist. It was supposed to be something made-up—a hoax, you know? But I've got the idea that this is the real deal—talking about cosmic demons and stuff. Starting to creep me out a little. _

_Heh, speaking of psychos, _thought Cheryl, _watch this._ She casually turned the page. Then, just as casually, she began to slowly lean back. It was an effort to keep her lips from stretching into a smile. Here we go…

"Stop that!" rang out the nanny's shrill voice. "Do _not _begin to slouch! It is especially unbecoming of a young lady. Your back will hunch, and you will become an especially unattractive marriage prospect to gentlemen."

Cheryl thought about the idea of becoming a _prospect _and opened her mouth to say something. _Nope, wait… Don't say it, _came Heather's thought. _I want to say it. It's my turn to get her pissed. _

"Marriage? Whoever said we wanted to get whored out?" said Heather. She closed the _Necronomicon, _held her place in the book with her right pinky-finger. "Because, that's what traditional marriage is and stuff. The woman marries the man, then the man keeps paying her for her services in bed, getting raped every night because the man is the one who makes the money. You know what? Screw that! We'd rather be unmarried than being screwed against our will and having ourselves reamed out from having too many babies."

"Such _horrid _speaking! You are approaching the upper limits of my patience!" declared the nanny. She quickly flicked on that clunky cellular phone. It made a sound an awful lot like the sound of a safety being clicked off of a rifle. "Any more abhorrent or deviant wording from you two, and they will come to take you away."

"_Jeez! Alright already!"_ said both girls simultaneously. _You just don't know how much we hate you_. _A nanny?_ _You're more like an overseer in a prison-yard. We wish you had about six different kinds of cancer. Then we wish that cancer was growing inside your stomach and you didn't know it._ The girls then had thoughts of the nanny kneeling in front of a toilet-bowl and coughing up thick, wet gobbets of blood and cancerous tissues. By then, the cancer they wished she had would have grown so much in her body that she was choking on it.

The nanny _clicked _off the cellular phone and set it down. "In all sincerity, I have my doubts regarding you. You both have the potential to be as exquisite as your mother—even if you _do _lack her height and choose to dye your hair away from its naturally dark tone. Then will come a time when proper clothing will make for more appeal…" She sighed and went silent, her eyes staring as if contemplating messy children--even if Cheryl and Heather were no longer children.

_She's _such _a buzz-killer! _That in mind, Heather nevertheless gave a sarcastic smile to the staring nanny. Cheryl gave an eye-rolling expression… Yet they both continued to do what that damned nanny told them to do. _Yes, _they would sit up straight. And _yes, _the girls would certainly hold to that ideal of posture, or _poise. _It was all in the interest of _etiquette _and being a _proper young lady… _There was no way around it: Either they conform to that, or this psycho-lady would press that bright orange button and have big guys in white clothes take them away. And being in a hospital was no joke.

Those blue eyes of the nanny were the color of the winter sky. And the stare was just _like _a winter day: cold, stiff and demanding. The stiffness and coldness came from how it was as if every little thing they did was subject to her staring inspection, every twitch, every breath… That nanny was watching their every move: damned if she was not trying to stare into their bodies to scrutinize their heart-rate and breathing lungs while she was at it. Maybe the nanny would disagree with their breathing? Or it could be that she did not like the idea of either of them having a pulse at all. In which case, being made into dead corpses or living mannequins would be the only way to keep that lady happy: just sit here like nice little dolls. _Hope that portable phone gives her cancer or something, _thought Cheryl

Never mind that, then: on with the reading. Heather was getting into a section of the _Necronomicon _where it was describing creatures, describing beings, things that were somehow older than the universe and were worshipped as such. Now _that _was a far-out concept. _Hmm! Older than the universe? That's what, about three billion face-lifts and tummy-tucks?_

Cheryl snickered, a slight snort of sound as she _barely _kept in a giggle. _Yeah, imagine the medical bills! But I suppose money's not thing when you've got a trillion years or so worth of stock dividends and real-estate investments. Wait… Doesn't your face sag and stuff after just the first four surgeries or something? Just the idea of your whole face getting peeled off and slapped back on after the doctors sucked and cut the underside. Ick… _She shuddered. _But I suppose it's better than having a copper stake through the chest and blood all over the place._

Heather shuddered as well. Yet it was not because of the religious items being discussed. Something was coming. She could feel it. With it was this notion of something going very wrong in the world, that feeling a person got upon receiving a death-notice or having to undergo major surgery the next day. Well, with Heather or Cheryl, it was more a feeling of a really big bill in the mail. It was _that _sort of feeling.

_Hssh-h-h… _The classical music playing on the radio hissed into silence. _Blink-flicker, _went the lights. _Bzzt…! _It made the entire room…_flicker and blink into darkness, as if the entire room blinked for the space of six seconds. There was the glimpse of something tall and wide. Eh-hah! Even when the lights returned to normal, the light classical music was gone and had been replaced with that light hissing sound of static. And there was still that kind of feeling in the room…_until the lights went back to normal.

_Please tell me the nanny notice that, _thought Cheryl. _It'd at least dump some attention off of us._ Her head was still tinged with nausea from what just happened, the room having blurred sickeningly. She could sense that Heather was feeling the same way—feeling slightly sick and dizzy. What about the psycho-lady? No way could she have sat there stiff-backed and staring for all that time.

She actually was. The nanny was still sitting stiff-backed and staring at the girls. Those cold winter-sky eyes were _still _locked onto Heather and Cheryl. _Will that lady _ever _give us a break? _That feeling of something-is-wrong seemed to dig deeper as well.

"_Ummm_… Hey, did you notice those lights?" asked Heather, meeting the steely stare of the nanny. And the nanny stared on. "Am I speaking _improperly _or _unladylike?_ I was told that staring was rude. Is politeness not a part of etiquette?"

Still remained was the nanny's mannequin-like stare. Cheryl tried moving her self slightly left and right, seeing if the nanny's locked stare would move with her. It did not. It was now as if the tall, thin blonde woman was staring at something just over their heads and behind them. That was what they call a _dead stare _in the cowboy books—as if the nanny did not even wish to acknowledge their existence. "_Hello!_" voiced Cheryl aloud. She waved bare arms over her head. "We're still here. Are you?"

There was a _twitch _of movement. At first, the girls thought that the nanny had some kind of spasm. But there was no facial expression to that. Another _twitch,_ and the nanny fell to the floor, the back of her head making a hard and painful sound sort of sound when it hit the carpet. Now her eyes were staring up at the ceiling with that _dead stare_. Well, the impact would not really have been painful—since dead bodies do not react to pain: not reacting to blows on the head, not even reacting when being cut open during autopsies. Dead people do not care.

…

2.

…

"Whoa!" exclaimed Cheryl. Both girls stood up and walked towards that armchair, going over to where the nanny's body laid upon the floor. _Like, she's dead… For real! It's a real human dead body lying here. What the Hell happened to her! _

Heather looked around. She put a right hand to her own right cheek, that sort of very worried gesture some people sometimes make when coming to an awful accident in public. _I don't know… It was maybe that thing we saw when the lights flickered and did that thing. It was just for a second, but something was definitely here. It was like we could feel it, too. Then we heard Frank's laugh… Wait a sec. _

Wait, indeed. While Heather and Cheryl were communicating speculative thoughts, the nanny began to move… That wasn't right. The nanny was dead. Still, parts of her body began to move. The legs twitched, the back arching. The body strained and twitched in those ways though the dead face had no expression. The body's back arched again, and the muscles in the thighs tensed to jerk the legs apart. It was as if the body was being obscenely electrocuted by something they could not see.

That was not the worst of it. The flat abdomen of the corpse began to show a lump. That lump pressed upwards a few more times, making for a tented lump in the part of the blouse worn over the abdomen. Then the lump began to go towards the pelvic area. Sounds of tearing and ripping began to sound out. It seemed to be the sound of tearing underclothes at first. Within an awful split second, the girls realized that it was actually the sound of sundered flesh… Something made a squealing sound that grated their ears, sounding like something that should not even exist.

_Wink-flicker…! _The lights began to do that thing again. Something began to pound on the walls. First it was the sound of fists. Then it was as if something was running upside-down across the ceiling, something with paws and claws. This was matched by loud _moaning_ sounds that also seemed to come from _inside _the walls. _Thump-thump-thump… _Something was trying to get in.

A final and awful _r-r-ripping _sound from between the legs, and something moved out from between the spread legs of the corpse. It crawled and squirmed, making mewling sounds. Then it _flicker-blinked _to disappear. They heard its baby-like cry echo through the air. That ripping sound, it was not that of undergarments.

If something would not be born normally, it would have awaited birth. This thing ripped its way into this world. That meant it probably had claws. With claws went a set of teeth. Knowing their luck it was fire that sawwt _Let's get the Hell out of here! _Both girls made a run for the front door. Jiggling the handle did nothing. And the locking mechanism was broken. The doorknob's mechanism was broken. It would not open. There was a feeling of brushed air as something seemed to run behind them. _Thump-thump-thump! _Moans and pounding continued to sound out as the girls tried the door again. When something else seemed to run past them, the lights flickering, both girls decided to make a run for the upstairs.

There was a heavy _swoomph_ of movement. Something with a gigantic head and six arms blurred in front of them, blurred into existence and blocked their way to the stairs. Then it _swoomphed _again, blurring to disappear. _Behind us, _came the thought. Heather quick-turned around. The thing blurred to the left to blur out of this reality again. _That thing is everywhere! Swoomph…_ That thing with the six arms and huge head was suddenly somewhere else in the living room, over by the nanny's dead body. Then it blurred to the right to disappear again. Something in the walls howled along with the wind outside, strong winds that were picking up in intensity.

"What do you want!" shouted Heather while Cheryl looked the other way. _Blink-flicker, _went the lights. "Why are you _doing this to us? _We didn't do _anything _to you. We don't even belong in this reality and didn't even ask to be here!" She clenched her hands and squinted her eyes as she shouted. "_So_ _leave us alone already!_"

There was a howling of wind, and the thumping sounds, the moaning sounds, sounds of disruption… That went silent to make way for a different kind of sound altogether… _Hrrmph, hummmp-hmmph-hmmph…! _They heard the distorted laughter with their ears as well as with their minds, hearing it resonating within their brains much in the same way that they could hear the entity in the bunny suit communicate with them, the way they also communicated to each other. Except, the creature known as Frank used words—even had a human name. The new presence in the living room was communicating with emotions.

And it was all the wrong kinds of emotions. It was an intense and strong enough to generate the darkest and most hurting of thoughts. It was a communicated feeling so intensely hateful that they were like a dull red sort of color. That dull sort of color was linked to ideas of old blood from rotting, slaughtered beings of flesh, also the color they saw in being murdered. Such thoughts seemed located in a rotting and distorted place of blood and rust, that of industrial and human decay and alteration—almost thoughts of nightmarish mutations. With the colors went an aroma of old misery and cloying misery among the mewling sounds of sick babies, of dying children and painfully crippled men and women. Except, the suffering promised by the emotions did not end with death.

The presence in the room wanted Cheryl and Heather _dead_. Not just dead, it wanted them _mutilated. _It wanted to kill them and then do something terrible to their dead bodies. And what it promised with emotions was guaranteed to be something worse than what happened to the nanny. _No way, _thought the girls. They made a run for the kitchen.

_Hrrmph, hmmph-hmmph-hmmph…! _Heather _clicked _the light switch—the lights going _flick-flicker. _There had to be something in here that they could use, something to fight with. Of course there was. They went straight to cutlery. Cheryl gave a yank to the cutlery drawer. All kinds of sharp and wicked-looking things were in there. Heather pulled the most dangerous-looking thing she could find—a long and wedge-shaped serrated knife. They both eyed the thing and thought dark thoughts about burying the blade in the body of the malformed creature moving around the living room. Then the kitchen lights dimmed… _What's going on now! _

Everything went quiet. The chaos in the living room, that sound was gone. There had also been an intense howling sound of something in the wind, which they had not noticed in the frenzy and confusion of the moment—thinking it was just the sound of a storm and not as dangerous as what was happening inside this house. Now that sound was gone as well. Not only that, but it was also as if someone…or _something _was doing something to the air that absorbed sound with some kind of cosmic acoustic sponge. Something else was happening.

A familiar sort of feeling came over them, a feeling they felt more than a few times before. _Frank _came the thought. _Here he comes again. _As intrigued and confused as they were all the other times that entity appeared, at least he could be no worse than the presence dominating the living room. That presence was no doubt taking over the rest of this house. Here, that more familiar entity was taking over the space.

Then there he was. His appearance was so instantaneous that it was as if he was standing there all this time but was not noticed. Six feet tall, wearing the silvery rabbit death-mask, the bunny suit covered the body from the neck-down. _The pain hurts too much, _communicated the entity_. Your power was needed. I'm so sorry… _

Their relief at seeing the entity was shoved aside with sudden frustration at the creature. _Look, if you're here to give us more of that crap about understanding stuff, then you can just shove it, _thought Heather and Cheryl. Maybe Heather thought it. Or maybe Cheryl did. This was one of those points where they were thinking with minds so closely linked that it was pretty much difficult to distinguish one from each other.

_Some kind of bad thing wants us dead. But we're not going to just end up being more dead bodies for it to fool around with, either. _The girl with the kitchen knife raised it while the other one closed the kitchen drawer. _We're going to find a way to make that thing dead, too. Just watch us. And if you're not here to help us, then get the Hell out of our way. Or maybe we'll find a way to get you, too._

_The end is the beginning, _communicated the figure in the bunny suit. It bowed its head. Doing so, those metal bunny-ears dipping like antennae. _Death is not the end this time. Time… _Then the entity faded out of this reality. With it went the dampened silence. Now the sounds of wind and chaos were returning, all of that frenzied madness.

_The gun cabinet, _thought Heather. _Why didn't we go for that in the first place? Knives are one thing, but give me a big ol' shotgun any day! Or at least a nice nine-millimeter pistol with an eighteen-round magazine. _They walked out of the kitchen and again into the living room.

_Swoomph…_ The large-headed creature of six arms blurred to disappear. Yes, it had still been here and would reappear again. It had been waiting for them. There was another sound of wind howling outside. That malevolent presence made itself known by making thumping sounds inside of the walls. More of that presence wanted to materialize, yet it seemed as if the warping creature was all it could manage at this time.

_Eh-hah! _The gun-cabinet clicked open on its own accord. There was no need to find the key. _Maybe that bastard-thing in the bunny suit isn't so evil after all? _In any event, the girls went to the gun cabinet and grabbed particularly long firearms: a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun for Heather, a rifle for Cheryl. They loaded their weapons. Then they both jammed the appropriate kinds of ammunition into their jeans' pockets. There was no telling how many shots it would take to kill that monster.

And they _will _kill it. One thing they learned was that if it breathed, if it was made of living flesh, it could be killed. Even the most malformed and grotesque creatures could be killed. Monsters were only invincible in horror movies. But the truth was, in reality, anything alive could be made _not _alive.

After the latest _swoomph _sound, the six-armed thing with the gigantic head stood there, was breathing heavily. Its head really was huge—a head easily the size of a person's chest. In fact, the head hid the shoulders and arms. How its seemingly nonexistent body could support such a massive noggin was beyond Heather and Cheryl's understanding. _Swoomph… _It blurred to the right and going out of this reality again…to reappear at arm's length. It opened its mouth—matched with a _blast _of sound and light. The thing clamped shut its huge mouth. "_Ngh-gish!_" it complained as a clear white oily fluid dribbled out of its mouth. Another _blast,_ and a hand-sized chunk went flying away from the thing's left cheek.

"Hah!" cheered Heather aloud. _You like _that_, don't you, baby! Damn…. Gotta reload reload. _She then thumbed the switch to snap open the double-barreled shotgun's breech, yanking out the expended shells to load in two more when the huge thing _swoomphed _to blur into disappearing again.

While Heather reloaded, Cheryl raised the stocky rifle to aim, taking aim… "Oomph!" Something struck. She was suddenly on her back as dizzying sparkles of pain hazed over her vision. A push of her arms, then using her legs, the girl stood again—though some kind of slime covered her left shoulder. It was making the upper part of her left arm feel numb and was making her feel a little sick. The girl resisted the temptation to wipe at the stuff: It would only make her right hand numb—the hand she needed to fire this rifle. _Something hit me. Didn't even see the bastard! _

_Woomph-swoomph… _That huge-headed thing appeared again, smacking its lips. _Crack-k-k! _Cheryl's rifle-shot gouged at its right cheek. She then saw the gigantic head shudder, saw the six arms spasm as well. The girl hoped she hit something important in the thing's insides. Trouble was how she had actually aimed for the thing's head, her numb shoulder making it hard to aim the rifle. _Crack! _Another shot did more damage to flesh.

_Swoomph-whoomph_… It did that blur-motion fade-out again…to reappear way over by the door. _Swoomph… _"Oof!" This time, it was Heather that was slammed forward as something hit her in the back to make her stagger. There was now a moist wet spot at the middle of her back. Like the spot of slime on Cheryl, it was slime. It was a _numbing _slime. Her legs were feeling somewhat weak now. _The bastard's got me, too! How the Hell does it do that?_

_Swoomph… _"_Ech-ach!_" declared the gigantic head, now in worse condition than it was before. The gigantic gouged-out wounds on that huge head were now somewhat snagged open. It was as if doing that _swoomph _warp-out maneuver seemed to worry its torn flesh the same way that running with a dog-bite on the leg made it worse—a lot worse. _Swoomph… _Nevertheless, the huge-headed thing blur-faded to the right again.

Numbness on her back and a weak feeling in her legs, Heather still had both barrels of her shotgun ready though some of that numbness was starting to creep throughout her torso. Was it getting a little hard to breathe? Next to her, Cheryl had already worked the bolt on the rifle to ready another shot. _Oh, come on! Give it up already, _came the thought. _Just reappear again…! _

_Whoomph… _When it reappeared, the thing thumped chin-first to the floor...appeared within kicking distance. Its eyeballs rotated to look at the girls while limp dark-green tentacles snaked out from beneath the head. And the ragged wounds it had on the cheeks were now even larger. Entire sections of flesh had been peeled and ripped, the blubbery and infected flesh hanging like meaty wallpaper on the skull. The tentacles wriggled…

A _blast _of sound came when Heather set the muzzle of the shotgun nearest the left eyeball. The result was a gigantic and smoking hole. She then did her best to set the tip of shotgun's muzzle against the lower-lip of the eye-socket. That second shotgun _blast _did the trick, also making Heather fall to her back. Her legs were just so damned numb and weak.

Yet the huge-headed thing was even worse off. Its mouth spasmed open, and its entire body—which was mostly head, really—shuddered and did a slight hop before it thumped to the carpet-covered floor agan. More oily white blood-fluid poured from the fist-sized nose. "_Agg-ahra!_" it blurted with its malformed mouth. Maybe it was trying to say something that would otherwise be normally comprehensible to human ears, though the deformity of the mouth kept it from doing so. Whatever it was trying to say, the girls did not care.

The thing was not going anywhere. Meaning, it was a perfectly well-behaved target for Cheryl's rifle. So she aimed for the thing's left eye. _Crack-k-k! _That loud and sharp sound, and the creature was holed through the left eye. The creature quivered. Then it was dead.

Heather weakly got to her feet, which was even tougher since her thighs felt chilled and shaky. _The thing's dead. I can't sense it anymore, _she communicated to Heather._. Can you? _She raised the shotgun to one of the blasted-open eyes. _I'd blast the thing with shotgun shells 'till it was a meaty mutated pulp, but that would only be a waste of shells. _

_Hrrmph-hmmph-hmmph-hmmph…! _Something laughed in their heads again. _Blink-wink, _went the lights. That presence that summoned the huge-head thing was still in this house. Both girls could feel it. The red-metal phone rang out from where it was on the coffee table.


	16. Chapter 16

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead_

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 16—Crimson Sunset

_No way was that phone on the coffee table there before now, especially one that ugly, _came the thought_. The thing would've stood out like a red cocktail dress at a rainy day funeral. Whoever heard of an all-metal telephone, anyway? Well, whatever. The thing is here—as ugly as it is._

They both tried to not care about that red telephone because there was something wrong with it. Looking at the thing made them feel a bit sick and disoriented. Yet trying to not care about something is the same as trying hard to _not _think about something. And if someone was told to _not _think about a pink elephant, the first thing a person was going to think about would be that pink elephant. Now the girls were telling themselves to _not _think about an ugly red-metal telephone. Meaning, they were thinking _exactly_ about the red-metal telephone on the table—and how the damned thing came out of nowhere and how the thing seemed to make them feel sick whenever their eyes rested on its red-finished surface.

And it was _r-r-ringing. _Cheryl gave a final _kick _to the malformed large-headed monster they had wrecked before she joined Heather in approaching the red-metal phone. They had the vague idea that the thing could be dangerous or a trap. Maybe it would blow up in their hands? Or maybe the handset would have some kinds of poisonous slugs crawl out of it…? If it could appear out of nowhere, there was no telling what would happen.

_Well_, _whatever_. Heather held the shotgun in her right hand and lowered the weapon's barrels as so they pointed to the floor, picking up the ugly red telephone's hand-set with her left. She put it to her left ear. Cheryl leaned close, her own ear close to the hand-set as well. She could just as easily have heard the telephone conversation tuning in on Heather's mind, but the desire to hear things with ears was a persistent habit. After some seconds, no explosions or poisonous slugs, Heather gave a glance to Cheryl before speaking into the telephone. "Hello?"

"_Hey girl! Good, you're all there. Listen… You don't belong here. Hell, this place doesn't even belong here!_" came the man's voice. It sounded distant and tinny through the telephone's earpiece—the sort of way a phone call used to sound on old-fashioned analog telephone lines. He was not rude in what he was saying or how he said it; he was actually sounding somewhat avuncular. "_You probably already have an idea about what kind of mess is going on, something to do with your Momma…_ _Or I should say, 'Mother.' What a Mother she is, too._"

Heather pulled the phone farther from her left ear and gave the telephone an annoyed look, her facial expression matching Cheryl's. _What's up with strange old guys calling us on the phone? This must be, what, the third call today? _

She said into the telephone, "Wait… Hold on a second, mister. First, who are you? No, don't even try to answer that. You've probably got some half-a-dozen phony baloney names lined up to use so the cops can't get a trace on you." She paused, her anger fading somewhat as realization dawned out of a memory. "Wait a minute. We've met you somewhere before. You were sitting on a bench with somebody else, those work clothes..."

There was then a pause of silence on the other end of the telephone. Cheryl and Heather could sense that the last statement had severely affected the guy on the other end, shocked him. "_You saw me somewhere else?_" asked the man. "_What did I look like? Did you see any injuries? Tell me, girl!_"

"Calm down!" exclaimed Heather. "Like, jeez! All I said was that we saw you somewhere else. It's not like we saw anything big and nasty about you. If we did, we would've told you." _He was kinda creepy, though, _she mentally added. _How can somebody have no shadow in full daylight? And what was up about talking in puzzles with that buddy of his._

"_Damn, I wish that wasn't true. I'd say that wasn't exactly me you've met, but you met who you met. It couldn't have been me unless something happened…_" There was another pause. "_Hey, do me a favor. Could you try thinking back to that meeting? Was there something not-right about? I'm still thinking there was something looking _really _wrong._"

"I still don't know what you're talking about," answered Heather. _Unless he means him not having a shadow and stuff, but I'm not going to mention that. _"Is there a point to this call, or are you just looking to get your kicks from calling girls about a third your age?"

"_Ha-ha-ha-hah…_" laughed the man's voice. "_If I ever had the bad luck of being you, I'd listen to the old guy on the other line. You know something's wrong with this town—which ain't really a town. It's a lie. And the harder you look at a lie, the more it breaks down. Guess what? That lie is breaking down like a coward under a gunslinger's stare. When it does… Well, you don't want to be around when it does. Something about 'not being able to sustain life' is what I'll tell you right now. Some interested parties contacted us and told us it would be best for everybody if you went back home._"

"Back home?" _Did he just say that? _This time, it was Heather and Cheryl to give the shocked pause that hung in the air, filled with silence in the air. They wanted to say a lot of things at once. Something pulled them back and out of their lives. They wanted to blame one individual thing or force, like blaming that entity wearing the silvery metal death-mask over the face and that _stupid_ bunny suit over the body. It would be so easy to just blame that thing. But there were other things, a _lot _of other things. Something big was affecting this town.

Now they could finally get the Hell out of this over-priced Hell-hole! They went to where there was once a town—Silent Hill—to do what had they had to do. Silent Hill was a place distorted to the point where normality was gone as it was successfully altered by certain forces. Now those very same forces seemed to begin dominating _this_ town. No way did they want to live in a place that was getting to get weird and nightmarish, threatened by something cosmic. "Tell us what we have to do," said Heather.

"_Not a problem! We'll pull our car up around front. Of course, we'll be prepared for problems—the kinds of problems that get solved with high-powered firearms. When you see our lights, you haul ass through the yard and hop in. Then we'll take you to the border. Are you with me?_"

"_You'd better believe that we are!_" said both girls, speaking in chorus. Heather added, "We're ready. We're ready right now. How long do you think it'll take for you to get here? Things are getting screwier by the minute."

"_Ain't_ _a problem!_ _We'll be there in no time_," said the voice on the telephone just as there was a pained screech of tires on the suburban street outside. "_No matter what anybody else says, we're always on time. Hah… I said 'time.' Well, get a move on, girl. Don't even bother to pack anything._"

Cheryl and Heather both blinked in surprise. They heard the screech of car tires outside as well as through the telephone. The guy on the telephone _did _say he would be there in _no time. _It was just one of those things people said off-the-cuff and at random. People said things like, _once in a blue moon _or _mountain out of a mole-hill. _Yet not too many people ever saw the moon looking blue or ever saw a mole make a mountain—at least not where Cheryl and Heather came from. They did not think that it was possible for someone to be at a place in _no time. _And there they were, getting here in _no time_. This was _too cool. _"Alright. We're out!" Heather slapped the metal telephone handset onto the telephone-console's cradle.

Both girls picked up their weapons and made a run for the door. Heather nearly slipped on a patch of greasy pale-colored gunk left over from when they blasted that large-headed thing… _Glad I wasn't wearing the usual boots-and-skirt outfit, _came a thought_. I would've lost my balance for sure. It's hard as anything to run in that tight thing—stylish as it is. _Cheryl rested the butt-end of the rifle on the floor before yanking the front door open.

Out into the cool night they went—a car parked on the street and waiting with headlights blazing to the right. Also waiting for them was a pack of six-legged things about the size of dogs—yet not dogs. Dogs were not that ugly. And dog do not eat dirt. Certainly, those things were not dogs or anything else that belonged on this planet.

…

Cheryl and Heather stopped right there—out in the night that was barely illuminated with streetlamps. Before them was the massive front lawn of this huge house, a front lawn that may as well be as wide as a soccer-field. Streetlamps barely illuminated the car parked in the street. Two blazing points of light came from next to the car to light up much of the front yard. The lights were especially powerful to make for that much illumination. Unfortunately, the things made visible by that light were not the sorts of things a person would _want _to see.

The things were something like dogs. _Something like _is not the same as actually being dogs, because there was no way on Earth those things could ever pass for canines. Six legs, long bodies of reddish meat-skin, they had long snouts and were eating the grass. No, they were eating more than just that. Those dog-things were actually tearing away the grass to eat the dirt beneath, defecating as they ate. Dark soggy matter plopped from their anuses at the same time that bite-sized chunks of dirt and plant roots were being taken up into their malformed, toothy mouths. They were eating the back yard one grotesque bite at a time. The air now smelled like some kind of chemical factory, a bit like the smell coming from that wire factory back in the city.

_Ew. Like, maybe twenty minutes, and the whole damned front yard is going to be a field of freaky monster crap, _came the thought. _It smells like it can cause about six kinds of disease or something. And, like, no way would anybody ever clean up monster crap. They don't even like cleaning up pet-crap! _

"_Snarfle_…" went one of the dog-things, looking up from its consumption of roots and dirt. That wasn't an animal sound. It really was as if a person's voice emanated from the dog-thing's mouth as it said _snarfle_—which made things even more weird. Another one of the meat-skinned dog-things turned its neck to look at Cheryl and Heather. A glowing red line lanced through the gloom, cutting through the slight chemical haze of the front yard to draw a blazing dot on the dog-thing's snout. Now they have glowing dots on their noses?

_Pwoosh! _The blazing red dot exploded, making the creature's snout vanish in a fist-sized explosion of dark fluid and gore. Of course the creature itself was not at all pleased with this. It filled the air with squealing and gasping sounds as its dark life-fluid poured to the ground it was eating seconds before.

"Hah! That dirt-dog's gonna have a hard time eating without a mouth!" cheered a man's voice from over by the car—one of them wearing those blazing pocket-lights. Squinting past the glare, the girls could see that both men with the pocket-lights were tall and looked dressed in work-clothes—the kind of blue work-shirt and pants worn by building-maintenance personnel. The one that fired the shot was holding an odd pistol that had a plastic and toylike look to it.

_Not _toylike were the results of him aiming and firing the thing—the intense red laser-sight finding another creature. _Pwoosh! _That shot punched through the dog-thing's ribs to make it dead even before it flopped to the ground. Two more dog-like things were smacked with invisible projectiles from the plastic pistol-weapon. There was now more or less a clear way across the yard.

The girls ran. Yet it was as if they could not run fast enough. They knew that their legs were in great condition because of their physical disposition, which was not normal due to their unusual births. They ought to have been able to dash really fast across the pitted, crap-strewn field of a front yard. Still, the yard seemed much larger than it was before. And it felt as if they were running slower than they ought to have been. This front yard, this _field_ magically seemed to get wider and longer even as they made a run for it. _Damned rich idiots and their oversized lawns, _thought Heather. _One day, these morons are going to get into real trouble for having all of this real-estate for no good reason other than to look at!_

One of the blazingly bright pocket lights turned to cut a swath of brightness that cut through the darkness of the night and the obscurity of the faint chemical haze. That other source of light came from the second guy in work-clothes. "Hey, it's me—Richard! Come on over here! You'll get through! Don't worry!" he shouted. That was the voice of the other janitor they met, sitting on that bench.

The other one—the one named Louie—also spoke up. _Pwoosh_… _Pwoosh…! _Two more shots from that funny sort of pistol took out two more of those dirt-dog things, which were not dogs. "Come on, now! You want out! We're your ride! Don't be afraid of those short-little punks. They ain't even people. Not any more, at least." He said that while taking aim with that strange pistol, placing another blazing dot that radiated from the laser-sight of the weapon.. _Pwoosh-pwoosh! _Each one of his shots critically blasted one of those creatures, damned good shooting. Still, there was only so much work a pistol could do against two dozen creatures.

The girls kept running towards the bright lights. And they still had to squint their eyes while doing so. Those things were pretty bright for something small and that could fit in a shirt-pocket. _Jeez! There's no missing those bright things, _thought Cheryl. _They must have little nuclear batteries in 'em or something. _

Heather went left and Cheryl went right, both of them going to where the two janitors stood on the street. "Get on in the back," said the other janitor—the one with the uncle-sounding sort of voice. "Those doors are open. Besides, the faster you get in, the less of those ugly assed dirt-dogs we have to put down."

A quick turn, a yank, and Cheryl had one of the back doors open. Heather jumped in and slid her butt across the back seat. She then grabbed one of Cheryl's hands and pulled her in as some more of those cartoonish gunshots-sound came from outside. After Cheryl slammed the doro, both girls spent the necessary two seconds to buckle themselves in. Nearly losing one's life in a car accident at an especially young age made a person extra-careful about vehicular safety. Then again, how safety concerned was a world where janitors packed super-accurate pistols with laser sights?

_Must use those things to blast rats or something when not shooting ugly assed dirt-dogs, _thought Heather, listening to Cheryl's thoughts as they looked out the right-side window of this car. _It's a pretty messed-up sort of world. And it's getting even more messed up the longer we're here. Let's get out of here. _

The janitors hopped into the front seats and slammed the doors. "Let's get the Hell out of Dodge!" declared the one named Louie, sitting in the right-side seat. There were deep mechanical sounds of the car's transmission being put into gear before Richard pressed his foot down on the accelerator-pedal—a _roar _from the car's engine. "Listen to that… Good old-fashioned roar from a fancy new kind of motor." They then zoomed off into this night.

…

2.

…

"Yes… This engine here, it's got power. We need the power, too…having to bowl over some of those animals," agreed Richard. Next stop, the border and whatever else is supposed to happen. There was a _squeak _of tires as the man took a surprisingly tight left turn. "Sorry about that one."

"We might as well say sorry for all the other ones coming up, too," added the janitor named Louie. "The town looks all sweet and decent when you're in the heart of it. But it looks pretty bad when you're headed for the borderland, the kind of bad you kids like to see in your horror movies. Ever hear that joke about potholes? You know, potholes so big that cars fall in and are never seen again? Well, it turns out that it's true for some of the border-area holes in the street. Then there are the huge potholes with things living in 'em… God-damn, they're ugly."

Both girls frowned at hearing someone mention _God—_any sort of god. To them, any sort of religion was getting to be bad news. The last thing they needed was for these two janitor-types to be holy rollers of one kind or other. They still could not get over the idea of any sort of janitors packing pistols. "Who _are _you guys, really?" asked Heather. "Where we come from, the cleaning people don't carry handguns."

"We ain't just cleaners, baby! We're _janitors,_" explained Louie. _Squeak! _This car maneuvered a tight left onto a main highway, and there was the press of acceleration as Richard pressed the accelerator—that roar of the engine picking up again. "Hot damn…! Like I said, there's a _world _of difference. You must've been around problems like this long enough to get my drift."

"If there's a problem, who are you going to call?" asked Richard. "Can't call _Ghost Bustlers!_ Or was it _Ghost Hustlers? _We've been to worlds where they didn't even have movies like that or any movies at all. There was this one world that didn't have much electrical technology because it rained all the time. Louie, remember that one? The one where there was nothing but cold running water?"

"Yeah… People were allowed to drink all they wanted and take all the showers they wanted. Trouble was, it was always cold showers. At least the people in that world were all right." agreed Louie. "What we're saying is that this world ain't right. Most worlds are good to folks like you and I, _human _people. This one ain't even supposed to exist. In fact, it's gonna stop existing damned soon. You saw those things walking around. And maybe you slipped into some weak spots in reality, too—this reality."

"Yeah, we got that impression," said Heather. "There was this sort of sick-dizzy feeling we haven't felt in a really long time. Sometimes the feeling would happen in one room. And sometimes we would walk into another room in this town and end up some place we wish we weren't. It's like…" _Ka-thump-p-p!_

This car hit something else. That _something_ squealed in pain and anger, continued squealing at the road behind them as this car still kept going. "What was that!" asked Cheryl, looking around and trying to look back—her seat-belt restraining her body.

"Hmmph… Sounds like an interloper," said Richard up front. "Does that sound about right, Louie? I think it was the red-furred kind. Those sound the worst."

"The scientists from the universities would have a real Hell of a time trying to name all the kinds of animals, plants and what-not that show up in this town," responded Louie. "Some of those folks spend all their lives studying just one kind of animal. Heh, what'll they do when those animals turns around and mutates into a whole new species in the blink of an eye? One minute, we've got a name for one kind of thing with four legs, two arms and gray fur. The next minute, another one of those things shows up with an extra set of arms, red fur and hooves instead of feet. There've been so many damned kinds of animals showing up that we don't even bother to try naming them all." A pause, and he added, "Now _that's _a horse of another color. Not a horse, but you get the idea."

"That doesn't make sense normally," mused Cheryl aloud, "but that sound just about right. Dad used to tell me about some of the messed-up things that walked and ran around Silent Hill when he came to find me. When I went back to that town, the…animals were different. Like, Dad didn't run into any dogs with two heads when he want to that other town. He didn't run into any ten-foot lumpy armed things dressed in nurses' outfits, either. But I did. It's like the animal-things change."

Cheryl wanted to call them _monsters. _They were like living trash, the things with diseased flesh and grotesque bodies. Nothing that twisted and distorted deserved to live. Yet the things did live—if one could call that _life._ She once encountered a religious fanatic that jokingly referred to the things as being people. _Just a joke, _he said. He was killed later, of course—stabbed twice by another one of his cult. The murderer was as much a monster as he was.

Still, the things maybe didn't deserve to be called anything. _Monsters, _that was what they were. If any one of the various wildlife was to show up in their world, most people would run before the police showed up to kill it: kill, kill, _kill_ the monsters. She could sense that Heather was thinking the same way. Yet the two men in the front seats were calling the things _animals_—as if the malformed creatures were a part of nature.

It gave her the idea that those two men must have dealt with those kinds of creatures long enough to not even bother thinking of the things as _monsters. _Those two men seemed to have the equipment and knowledge that came with experience. Their pocket-flashlights were probably specially designed to illuminate dark places. Cheryl and Heather also noticed how the janitors' pocket-lights gave off a special kind white light that didn't seem to get the attention of the monsters. And what was up with those toy-like pistols with the corny sounds? There was something about these janitors. Just talking about the monsters as if they were _animals _was enough.

Thought Heather, _How would a guy from a thousand years ago feel the first time he saw a bear? How about a bison? Think about it—a huge, shaggy haired thing that looks like a cow with about two extra fur coats on. But it's not a damned cow. It is what it is, just another kind of animal._

_Another kind of animal, _thought back Cheryl. She asked aloud, "So, like, what do you guys supposed to do now? Those animal-things are getting _wa-a-ay_ out of control. They're all over the place. It's like they were hiding out before. Now the things are running wild."

"They were all over the place all this time," said Louie. "You just didn't notice 'em. Or you just couldn't see the bastards. It depends on your point of view in a place like this." _Squeak! _This car swerved to the right, slowed down…before Richard could straighten the wheel and get it going straight again. "Shit… Like I said, we're gonna hit more trouble spots as we get closer to the town's border. Yeah, and the animals were hiding in plain sight. You just have to look at them a certain way."

"Like street signs?" asked Heather. "I was studying the driver's manual and was getting ready for the state test… You know, for the driver's license? All of a sudden, it was like I was noticing how some signs are shaped certain ways for some ways. Then there are those marks on the ground. It's not like they weren't there all this time, just that I never really had a full idea what they all really meant."

Louie nodded. "Sounds like you've been getting some indications of your own about what's been happening. You must've heard wrong noises on radios. Or sometimes electrical appliances and what-not will start going to crap on you. When the universe bends, electricity acts kind of funny. And the universe bends around those animals."

"That's why we're some of the people supposed to stop the animals," added Richard. "Even if they weren't so butt-ugly, you just _know _they don't belong in our world.. They don't even go in _this _world."

"This world, any other world," agreed Louie. "Before I got this job, I didn't really much think about other places. I used to like some of those scary movies and take a girl to see 'em. You know, get some popcorn, sit down in the theater and watch those scenes where the wind blows just before the invisible monsters start showing up to make a car accident or something. What was that one with the monster in the mask that could appear anywhere? The one with the killer in it?" _Ka-thump! _"Hell! Another jump-bump like that, and the girls might get the wrong idea about what this car is used for! So don't, girls. We ain't find any broads to make out with in that back seat."

"Okay…" said Heather. There was not much else she could say to a statement like that. The idea that those two janitors went cruising for ladies somewhat amused her. Yet it was believable. They seemed that cool and laid back—though an old-fashioned kind of laid back.

When she and Cheryl listened to these two men talk, it was like listening to uncles they never had, the kind of uncles that worked a job down at the local machine-tools factory or worked with heavy diesel-powered vehicles. The two guys also sounded like the sort they could pop open beers with and talk trash on weekends. Life was hard, yes. But having a cool attitude about it and joking somewhat made it easier.

Nothing was easy now, though. People like Louie and Richard didn't exist in their everyday lives. It came from having nothing like uncles to begin with. As far as they knew, they had no aunts, either. And _that _was what happened when people were born as a result of whacked-out religious rituals and psychopaths who wanted to sacrifice them to some kind of trans-dimensional god-figure: no real relatives. Yeah, then have a crazy cult-lady kill your adoptive Dad after some damned disease killed your adoptive mother.

On top of that, try being poor. Try ending up working some job below the table for less than minimum wage 'cause you couldn't go to high school due to the fact that faked-up birth certificates won't pass government scrutiny. Only people with all the legal paperwork were able to get minimum wage at all… The point of this all was how, even if the girls made it back to their time and worlds, there would still be that dead-end job they had to work. Damn, life can really suck.

"You're going a little quiet there. Ain't met girls before who didn't like more than a little chatter. If you wanna shoot off at the mouth, that's okay. I like women-folk who talk," voiced Louie. "Something going on that you want to gossip about?"

"_Nothing_," said both girls simultaneously. They glanced at each other before Cheryl spoke up. "We're glad we've got somebody on our side. That's all." _Sque-e-eap! _This car mad a crazy left turn in swerving, everything lurching to the right. The way that janitor Richard veered and lurched this car, one would think he would wreck all four tires. But it was better for tires to be wrecked than one's state of mind. He was steering and veering around creatures so atrociously ugly that just looking at them would make a person a candidate for the psychiatric ward. Yes, it was that place where the all-year fashions included long-sleeved white jackets that fastened at the back, along with burly male nurses quick with the sedatives.

"You seem to know what the Hell is going on. That's a plus," said Heather. "Now we're hoping this whole damned land doesn't implode and take us with it. Speaking of lands, what was that talk about 'ability to sustain life' and stuff?"

"I was talking about this world," said Louie. "Maybe I should've said _human _life? The way the town is, it ain't gonna be around too much longer. They set this place up in the middle of nowhere, thinking they could have a nice little normal-looking town in a world they thought wouldn't have problems. Then things started moving in, getting through and into the town. It's like setting up real-estate development on the planet with that movie _Alien, _only worse. We had to help you out before real-estate values went too far down, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah," voiced Cheryl. "You guys don't seem like the 'cult' sort. ou seem like genuinely nice people. Thank you. It's not every day that somebody cares."

Louie looked to the left at Richard. The comment seemed to have embarrassed them somewhat. Being so rough and ready all the time put them off guard for the occasional sincere praise. Then it was Cheryl and Heather feeling embarrassed for having said something so _corny _as _Thank you. _Everyone was quiet in the car and left the sound of the speeding engine to fill the silence. "I'll crank the radio," announced Louie. _Click! _

"..._This news-hour is brought to you by the Indiana Creek Association, reminding you to man-dog it on home,_" went the radio. "_Today's major headline news is about the country of California_ _asking for foreign aid in dealing with space debris, claiming that…_" _Bzzt! Hisst… _"_Oceanic water rights were being violated by dumpers of animal wastes… Because forty percent of the world's oceans are now filled with the highly prized dual-headed green dolphins and other life-forms, the topic remains a key bone of contention…_"

Green dolphins, California becoming a country, space debris, all of that was _way _too weird for their tastes. That janitor _did _say something about there being other worlds. Well, what kind of world were they in right now? Who the Hell would _want _to move into this world if there were other worlds, anyway? Yes, the real-estate values around here were going to Hell, so to speak. If the weirdness did not get you, the animals would. And when the news-radio became too weird, the girls stopped paying attention—not letting the news get to them.


	17. Chapter 17

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

"The Unthinkable" (Venetian Snares Version)

Original lyrics by Buck 65

Remix by Boom Bip

Chapter 17—Radioactivity

This vehicle continued zooming along through the darkness, lights blazing ahead and cutting through that darkness. Left and right of this wide machine-paved path known as a highway, there was no light to illuminate—at least not enough light for human eyes. It was as if there was nothingness out there, as if reality itself did not exist left and right of the roadway--a road through the middle of nowhere. Then again, if nowhere was infinite in size, could there be a middle to it? Maybe it was more along the edges of nowhere, and the core of nowhere filled with things a person would be better off not contemplating.

Yet, the way through this infinite darkness was illuminated with twin car headlights—showing the way ahead. Slight static hissed into the song playing on the radio. It was extremely late at night. Or it was very early in the morning—so much so that it looked as if sunrise would not be for quite some time yet. How one saw it depended on one's outlook. And from what Douglass saw through the windshield, the darkness would likely not let up for hours. He thought of it as being just very late at night.

How late was it? The last time Douglass glanced at his watch, it was 6:51 a.m.. It should have been sunrise by now. Or was it daylight savings time, something or other? Maybe there was just an excess of cloud-cover—stifling the morning sun. This was northern California, and odd weather tended to happen these days due to global warming, pollution and all that other real-life nightmares in the world that the politicians never wanted to talk about. Some of that odd weather could have coated the sky. Still, for the sun to not be up by now was some kind of trouble and needing some kind of explanation.

He just kept thinking about reasons for the sun not being up yet, logical and normal reasons for sunrise not reaching northern California. The sun _always_ came up. It came up for billions of years before on Earth. And it would likely keep coming up for billions of years more. It _would _come up, and one middle-aged man worrying about it would not make it come true. He would just have to think about something else. To use one of Heather's words, _Whatever. _

So he thought about getting a new car instead of thinking about the darkness outside. About a new car, he was certainly making enough money nowadays for that sort of thing, covering all of these extra cases. A vehicle to reflect that financial truth would serve him well. This old wood-colored station wagon really had some years on it. It _worked_, made by one of those foreign manufacturers. What idiot would buy a domestic car these days, anyway? Most all factories were overseas nowadays with just some exceptions—like that wire and insulation manufacturing plant back in the city. Yes, he would buy something foreign, a real sporty little car, a car that was red and dangerous-looking. Insurance would be Hell to pay. But hey, he was making money hand over fist lately. Maybe he'd just sell this thing to Heather?

No, there was no way he could do that. The girl was doing her damnedest to make money, and she was always saving what pitifully little she had left over from buying necessities. He had an unofficial agreement with her that she pay half the apartment's rent. But even paying just half of that took most of the money she made at her full-time job. He did not ever ask her about what her bank account was looking like these days, though he suspected that she was likely stashing that little bit of money away in case something started happening to her, making her move away—something like what happened when that crazy cult found her two years back…

The start of the craziness was him: hired by that cult. The religious group told him that Heather had been kidnapped from them. How bad could it be, a religious group that handled about a dozen orphans on the side? Their interpretation of religion was a little bit off. But, hey, his interpretation was not too strict; he just wasn't too religious a person himself. And the cult was also willing to pay the usual fee for his services back when jobs were a little hard to come by. So he took their money and did the job—finding Heather, only to nearly be killed after finding out what the Hell that cult was really up to. How about mass murder, destruction of a town, and crazy talk about bringing on the end of the world?

And by the way, him finding her led to the cult killing her dad. She had been perfectly fine living with her father in relative isolation. She worked at the mall. Her dad was a mid-list writer—not as big a name as Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft, but his work still managed to find its way onto bookstore shelves. Together, Harry and Heather had a nice little family unit and a steady income even years after the mother of the family died. It may have been somewhat stifling to live in such a small apartment in an old apartment building, but it was the closest thing they still had to a family. That would therefore make it cozy: their own little place in the world.

_Bzzt-boom-bip! _Douglass looked quickly around the confines of this car. _What! _There was this rapid series of electronic sounds and heavy thumping coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time! Then he came to realize that it was the car's radio-speakers. Either it was music, or was music mixed in with crazy static and radio interference. It was the radio. Amidst the noisy chaos, he looked down and right at the radio. Then he reached down with his right hand and tried slightly twisting the knob. _Bzzt-bip-bip-bip…_ Nope, that was doing nothing. It just made for variations on the tune. The spasmodic insane rhythmic stuttering went along with the ranting, rapid-fire lyrics:

Box of bones, beside my bed!

Crow's foot…in my pocket!

Big black circles, I'm in pain!

Stick a knife into a socket!

Bottle rockets…!

It was music coming from the radio. Thought Douglass, _Music? What the Hell kind of so-called music is this! Sounds more like a seizure happening to some psycho in front of a synthesizer! _No way could this pass for some kind of pleasurable sound. Ah, but the kids were listening to all kinds of noise these days. They _loved _it: the more obnoxious and grating, the better. And noise wasn't what he wanted to hear. Noise wasn't music, so he kept trying to turn the radio station. As he left the radio alone, the noise kept trying to resemble music while someone rapid-chanted the stutter-quick lyrics.

Boil water; spill the beans…

Sit still; listen to the wind blow!

Burn the photos!

Kill the lights!

Hold your breath

Spy on your neighbors!

Do the tango…with a broom!

Wrap the presents up with newspaper!

Fly a kite, late at night!

Take a walk along the coast.

No matter what, I still can't sleep.

Everywhere, _I still see ghosts!_

He could barely understand what the lyrics were about. It was all full of crazy talk about ghosts and evil magical spells this late at night, he didn't need to hear this! So he just kept turning and twisting that dial. He was acting as if he could break the musician's neck by remote control to shut him up, squeezing the dial between thumb and forefinger and angrily yanking and twisting, _anything to shut that noise up!_

It did not do much good. That obnoxious song and its dark, rapid-fire lyrics just kept coming. What did they call it? Rap or something? Rap was that kind of music out of Canadian cities. Yet the few Canadians that Douglass met in his life, they were on the decent side. Yes, this was music out of _Canada. _He could only imagine what kind of madness would come about if his fellow _Americans _made rap music.

Selected works of Karl Marx!

Greatest hits of Bill Monroe!

Midnight on the stormy deep.

Where did all the children go!

Angels on the tops of trees!

Baseballs in a prison yard.

Lovers in the cemetery.

Close your eyes; it isn't hard!

Wicked witches cast a spell.

My heart's been broken more than most.

No matter what, I still can't sleep.

Everywhere, _I still see ghosts! _

He tried turning off the radio. Still using his thumb, he jabbed at the _on-off _switch. Yet _nothing was working! _"Stupid old piece-of-crap car! _I ought to_ _ram you into an electrical pole if this keeps up!_" Anger hazed his vision as he actually scanned the road, looking left and right for something long, tall, thick, hard, and pounded into the dirt, deep enough to withstand the impact of a _stupid old piece-of-crap car. _He tightened his grip on the steering wheel…

Wait a damned second…! What the _Hell _was he doing? This was far and away from being the right way to behave. This was very much unlike himself. He never shouted because he never had the voice for it. Even when he shot a man in the course of his job, he did not even shout his threat. Then he knew what was going on here. Something was making him angry.

"Okay, I give up!" he said aloud. "A man can only take so much. What, is some guy supposed to come out from behind my seat and say that it's all for the sake of one of those new television shows? This must be the butt-end of a bad electronic joke!"

_Bzzt-hisst! _The radio's noise sputtered and changed up. Douglass tried wrangling the tuning knob again. Only eventually did the last of the electronic-demonic noise-music go away, to be replaced with a professional voice of reason. Finally, it was something on the radio that did not sound as if under diabolic influences.

"_Now for the news… A certain detective has declared that he would be more cooperative with the concerned authorities regarding a certain missing female_ _in her late teens—a female five feet tall, bluish-green eyes, lean and athletic-looking. The detective was last seen driving in the completely wrong direction. Say authorities, if he is to assist the missing female, he is to be brought around to the right way._"

"What are you talking about!" said Douglass above the loud radio. "You can stop it now! I've lived too long to put up with jokes. So stop that _right now! _You're just making me angry." At this point, he really was becoming flustered. _Why am I talking to the radio? Because it's making no sense! _

It was also true that his anger made no sense. People railed and ranted against radios and televisions all the time. Not that it did much good, but it was still something people did. It sometimes made people seem to be crazy. What was crazy, talking to the radio? Or was it crazy that it seemed as if the radio was talking specifically about _him? _

_Fzzt-buzzt! _"_Reports indicate that the detective-in-question appears especially cooperative with the authorities, though angrily demanding of answers. The authorities shall nevertheless give assistance to the detective. A meeting has been arranged between the detective and certain representatives of the appropriate department personnel. Meanwhile, expect a radical change of local weather patterns._"

In that moment of radio silence, the car engine still thrumming, Douglass sat in waiting of a weather report. Maybe he would hear that explanation he was looking for. It was still true that the sun was not up. Nor was there any sign at all of there being sunrise. The sky was darker than the universe.

The radio, it had been talking about him without admitting to it. Whatever Douglass said, the news-man on the radio spoke exactly in relation to it. So, why not talk back to the radio? It was as if the man on the radio responded right back to whatever was said. And if he appeared crazy, there was nobody around to see if he was. Only if he made a habit of this would it become a problem. "Now if only I had way of getting to that meeting—wherever the Hell it is supposed to be." Something hairy and dark flew over this car, floated in the headlights, then zoomed up into the sky. Things suddenly began to happen after that.

He squinted against the _sudden blazing glare of light. _A bright, blazing light glared down on this night-darkened highway where it was once so dark. The cosmic spotlight then locked onto his car. He heard a heavy thrumming electromechanical sound that pounded in his ears. "_What the…?_" was all he had time to get out before _he was overcome with a sickening and dipping sort of feeling as if everything twisted at once. It felt as if his stomach was being squeezed, his head feeling as if swimming in a sick sea of dizziness. Douglass never had motion sickness before…_

_Maybe it was not motion sickness. This could be some kind of heart attack. Or it was a brain tumor pressing into his skull, making him sick and dizzy. That could explain the radio. Explanation being, he was imagining and hallucinating it. Even if it was not a brain tumor, there were a thousand other things that could be wrong with his insides right about now, all of those internal organs pumping and squeezing. He ought not have been smoking at his age. The doctor he occasionally visited told him to quit or die. _

_So maybe now he was dying. Something went wrong with his insides, and now he was being sick and dizzy into death. That, or he would veer off the road any second. That electrical pole he threatened earlier would be coming up. It was like a roller coaster into his own personal Hell, like those crazy amusement-park rides back when he was a kid. Something happened to the road ahead, twisting and compressing as the bright spotlight changed to a florescent blue. He thought that this was it. He always thought the light at the end of the tunnel was supposed to be a heavenly white. That light looked a bit like the glow from a neon road-sign_…

_Squeak! _ _Car tires touched down…_on the highway. Being a private detective, Douglass had been in trouble before and fought to keep himself calm. Sometimes that meant vehicular trouble. He kept this car going straight even as his eyesight and sense of balance was going off-kilter. A slight touch of the brake-pedal made for this vehicle slowing down. All that he had to do was hold on a little longer.

…

The vehicle eventually slowed to a walking pace. When he was sufficiently slowed to near-stopping, he maneuvered the vehicle to the shoulder of the highway. Yes, he would be able to stop this car _eventually. _That sense of _eventually _seemed to get longer even as the highway had appeared to compress when he was on the road. _Come on, come on…! _A final firm press of the brake pedal finally stopped this thing.

And when the car did stop, Douglas didn't even bother to turn off the car engine. He just opened up the driver's side door. Then he stepped out. This middle-aged man could barely walk and was barely able to hold in the vomit before reaching the dirt and sand at the side of this road. Whatever he had for dinner, it came gushing up in a wet and sick-tasting mass of chunks. He took as long as he needed in getting it all thrown up.

"_Achem!_ Yech, what a load…" he loathed aloud, giving a final cough. The indirect illumination from his car's headlights made visible the pile of mush now on the sandy side of this highway—that kind of sand-and-dirt sort of ground known as _loam_. He decided to not look at it. What he instead noticed was the fact that the ground-dirt this side of the highway was not the same kind of ground that should have been there. Douglass was _sure _that the highway he had been driving was flanked with prairie-fields of grass-covered hills. And since when was sand a rusty red color?

As he thought on this, standing in silence, he noticed the distant sound of thrumming machinery. He turned his attention from the reddish loam—and consequently looking away from his pile of vomit—to have a gander at his surroundings. Well, it was dark despite it being eighteen minutes after seven a.m. in the morning. A look up at the sky made for a view of sheer darkness. Some kind of aircraft stopped briefly in the air, lights shining, before zooming on. _Bzzt, flick-flicker!_

_What the…? _To the right, something suddenly lit up the local night air extra brightly with all kinds of exterior lights. Douglass painfully squinted in looking in that direction. What he saw was a smallish, one-story building of concrete walls, a flat roof with slanted sides—the sort of architecture typical of small eateries. _Blue Plate Stop & Go _read the huge florescent sign set high atop a metal pole. That would make it a truck stop even if there were no trucks parked outside it.

_Bzzt-hisst! _"_This just in…_" went the radio back in the car. Yes, he left the car lights on and the radio still blasting. "_Authorities are still on the lookout for a middle-aged, large-nosed man in trenchcoat and pants, a light-brown fedora on his head. His eyes are blue. The man-in-question is wanted for a much-needed discussion regarding the whereabouts of a nineteen-year-old girl. The authorities sit in waiting at a meeting place and have not delivered word on the detective's appearance…_"

Not wanting to waste the battery's electrical reserve, Douglass went back to his vehicle to turn it off. The hard sandy ground felt odd and hard under his shoes until stepping upon the asphalt of the highway itself as he walked. Something about the ground gave him an odd and slightly uncomfortable feeling…. And once at his car, he eased himself back into the driver's seat—sitting there just long enough to turn off the engine and take his car-keys. Headlights and radio off, there was now just the light of the truck stop for illumination. He was also sure to grab a flashlight from the glove compartment—and an extra box of ammunition for his pistol in addition to the four boxes distributed throughout his trenchcoat pockets: hundreds of rounds of handgun ammunition. When dealing with people, just thirty-six rounds—two magazines of pistol ammunition—would be the most anyone ought ever to need. And if a person ever needed any more pistol ammunition than that, he or she would likely be soon dead. Oh, but such reasoning only belonged when one was dealing with a threat from people. Douglass had dealings with enemies that were not quite _people... _

He began to mentally ready himself for such a confrontation, any confrontation. He stood up and out from his vehicle and closed the door, locked it. That truck-stop over there was still very brightly lit—florescent lights so bright that they could be blazing cancer-inducing radiation or something. A low breeze blew at his back and in his ears as he regarded the place. It was not as if there was anywhere else to go around here other than the infinite darkness of the wastelands that were no doubt all around.

His thoughts returned to here and now. _If nowhere was ever a place, this ought to be it, _thought Douglass. _Truly, this place is nowhere… _He kept to walking along the edge of the highway instead of on the strange ground. Another one of those aircraft stopped high above before moving on in the infinitely dark sky as he entered the truck stop and eatery—thinking about how this was another delay in work on the missing artifact case he was supposed to handle.

…

2

…

_Whamp-p-p! _The thick wooden door slammed itself shut after Douglass walked in—making him quick-turn around to look at it. Nothing else happened, just a door staying shut. _That can't be right, _thought Douglass. _That thing was metal. _He then turned to face the rest of the inside of this place. _I've been here before, _thought Douglass. _Somehow, some way, I've been here. _

The inside of this so-called truck stop largely resembled every other diner and café There was booth-seating along the left side of this place, near the left-side wall. To the right was a quick-order counter with padded circular stools on bronze poles. Behind the counter was a place with industrial cooking equipment. The center far end had three rectangular doors, presumably the bathrooms. Everything was brightly illuminated with florescent lights and looking very typical—excepting the total lack of windows. Where windows were supposed to be, there was just plain painted wall-space.

_Z-z-zip…! _A jukebox began to play a 50's kind of tune—a jukebox that just wasn't there a second ago. It was exactly the kind of music that fit in this kind of place. Trouble was, Douglass had never heard that song before. It was in the style of all the kinds of 50's music he heard all his life, at all the cafes. Yet he had never heard this tune before.

"Hey boy! We've been talking about you," called out somebody at one of the booth-tables. Douglass saw that it was someone in blue work-clothes, a tan-complexioned sort of man with a full head of white hair. Sitting next to him was someone dressed in the same sort of outfit and balding. "Now here you are. It's just like magic!"

"Wherever _here _is," responded Douglass, a hapless flop of his arms. He thought about staying standing and not getting anywhere close to those strange men in the janitorial uniforms. But the man had been driving for hours. Standing up was becoming wearisome. When a person was his age, the thing to do was rest whenever possible. So rest he would. This went, even if what he really needed was a bed.

He walked over to where the two men in work-clothes were sitting, slid himself into sitting opposite them—his hands and trenchcoat-sleeved forearms on the table. "I heard that creative radio advertising of yours. What do you know about nineteen-year-old girls? Don't you think we're all a bit too old to be worried about very young ladies? I don't think that girls of that age would be especially interested in us." He also wanted to know how the guy in janitor's clothes could call him _boy_, yet decided not to ask

"Speak for yourself, buddy boy!" voiced the first janitor. "I can still reel in the ladies, be they in their forties, thirties or even in their twenties! In fact, all nine members of the female company I had last week were all satisfied with my service. But that's last week in the way of relatively speaking. You know how the passage of time can be." He elbowed the janitor sitting to his left. "Ain't that right, Richard?"

"I'd say something, but Douglass probably wouldn't believe it any more than you'd believe where you are," answered that second janitor. "She'll come back to you. But it won't be her exactly. If you can live with that, everything will be right as rain."

Douglass really wanted to ask them, _What are you talking about? _Then again, that was the very same phrasing he used in talking to Heather the first day he met her in person. And then there were multiple times that same night in which people he met talked in those puzzles. There was more to what was being said than just the words being used. There were also meanings behind words.

Now, what was it that they were saying? _Not her exactly, _said the janitor-man on the left. What, so Heather would come back a little different? When dealing with the antics and hijinx, hoo-doo and voodoo of business like the stuff in that particular town, nobody was ever the same afterward: things that are _not_ supposed to exist, things that are _not_ supposed to happen … It was all the kinds of stuff a person would expect to read out of a horror novel, or hear from a crazy person, or maybe things from a horror novel written by a crazy person. Yet Heather had already been through that sort of experience, weirdness and all. Hell, the girl _grew up _in that town a lifetime ago. She did not end up talking in puzzles for the rest of her life.

Yet here he was in dealing with people who were doing exactly that—talking in puzzles, acting like riddlers. Riddles, those were more casual. But these were puzzles in that a person had to figure them out for the sake of real problems. He still _really _wanted to ask them about what the fuddle they were _really_ talking about. What, would Heather come back wearing a whacked-out white leather dress, silly swirly earphones, and the ability to shoot energy-beams from her eyes, _that _kind of change? Stranger things have happened.

The janitor on the right, the one with the full head of gray hair, leaned forward. "You know? You've got the sort of look on your face that asks, _What_ _are you talking about?_ And the lines on that forehead of yours is telling me something, telling me that you're thinking about the antics of that-town-we-should-not-directly-mention. Am I right or wrong?"

It took some seconds for Douglass to realize what just happened. When he did, there was no masking the sudden surprise on Douglass' face. That was because there was no way that the man could have known almost the exact sort of thoughts running through his head. He had therefore better not think about something so obscene as a particularly voluptuous and athletic-looking red-haired college girl that lived about two stories up back at the old apartment building—a firm-bodied beautiful girl who would feel great when you wrapped your arm around her during the day and feel even better in bed when you had her for all-night bedroom company… _Don't think about it! _

Too late, he _was _thinking about it, trying _not _to think about that college girl. That college girl, she lived in the apartment building back in the city. She had that slight cinnamon undertone to her creamy skin that went with being a true red-head—her beautiful and strong-looking legs almost fully exposed to the buttocks due to the especially short jeans-shorts she tended to wear when doing laundry, shorts worn with spaghetti-strap tops that bared her flat abdomen and narrow waist. Such an outfit also outlined the fact that the nubile young lady with the beautiful body often went braless—a beautiful body and face to match—her large breasts absolutely filling that top of hers, fine points of nipples apparent… _Don't think about that, _thought Douglass to himself_. Don't think about that! _But _of course _he was thinking about that. To tell oneself to _not _think about something was the same as thinking about it.

The janitor on the left tilted back his head. He was also sitting especially straight-backed, something in mind. The janitor on the right gave a knowing smirk. Uh-huh, they both knew what was going on in his head. "My God… Who _are _you people?" asked Douglass.

"Who, what-where?" in turn asked the janitor on the left. "My God, you say? God knows what! Something is happening, because something happened and _will _happen." He looked to his left. "It gets hard for somebody like me to tell _when_. I know what. It makes me want to think about shiny rabbits. Telling you-know-what gets harder to grip."

The janitor on the right tapped the tabletop. "So get a grip," he said to his fellow maintenance worker. Speaking to Douglass, he said, "Think about the world some people live in. It's not everybody's world, just some people's world—like people of government and school. The floors are kept clean. And the walls of the buildings are hard and painted, no mold or cracks. Then there's how all the lights are on and working. Everything is all nice and kept neat and functioning, not looking so ghetto.

"So who are we? We're _janitors. _Who else do people call on when things start going wrong? Machines mess up, people call us. Animals start showing up in buildings, they still call us. When walls crack, pipes leak and vomit ends up on the floor, we're there to fix it. We're here to keep things from going wrong. And if somebody wants to know where we came from… Well, maybe that's the wrong kind of question. You could ask that creepy phantasm-looking killer in the metal bunny mask the same question, and he'd probably give you an even less straight answer—just like I'm doing right now, baby!"

At the mention of a _metal bunny mask, _Douglass ears perked. He would have normally asked questions around what he wanted. Yet there was no hiding anything around these two guys. Just by _looking _at him, they knew what he was thinking. So he came out with it. "I so happened to have been looking for exactly that sort of thing. What do you know about that artifact?"

That janitor on the right shrugged. "I'll try to answer the best way possible, the best way that can be understood in human terms. Think about something dark and strange, something wondrous and amazing. It would be so dark and weird that it maybe couldn't even exist in the real world—in _any _real world of ours.

"In fact, it didn't exist in any real world. _It _could only happen to exist in one of those other worlds. But I can't just say 'happened,' like the thing just blurred into existence. I'd have to say that the thing was _made _into existence.

"Then someone somehow got it into his crazy head to make something so wonderful and strange, an awful lot like it. No, he could not _make _it. Maybe the idea came to him in a dream. Or maybe he just became so piss-drunk late one night that he _hallucinated _the damned thing, alright? Sleep deprivation plus intoxication, that can't be a good combination for staying in reality. Who _hasn't _hallucinated something or other in his or her life?

"In that state of mind, the guy probably had a glimpse into some Other world. Yeah, I said _Other_ world, capital _O_. You know, it's a place, just like Kansas is a pladce. Except, we ain't in Kansas anymore, Toto. We're talking about somewhere else altogether. So just that one glimpse into that Other world, just a flicker of inspiration, and suddenly the guy makes something that is a weak part of something else. It's not long before something bad happens to him, and he ends up being able to do some fucking crazy stuff that ends up having implications throughout time—and that Other world. Am I starting to answer your question?"

Douglass thought the janitor on the right was the sane one. Everything he said made more sense. If something was going to be a puzzle, at least it was a coherent puzzle. Now that one was starting to talk as crazily as the janitor on the left. What was up with this sort of business driving people nuts? Wait…

There was something that did not sound so far nuts that it lacked sense. It was like the idea of that _Other _world. Now where the Hell did he hear about that? Heather's adopted father, _that _was where he'd heard it from. Make that _read _it from. Heather's adopted father was Harry Mason—a mid-list sort of writer. And like some writers, he kept journals and diaries. One thing he talked about was that _Other_ world. Douglass first thought it was crazy talk about some kind of alien invasion. It was the kind of thing that made one think about gray-skinned, large-headed midgets in silvery suits and flying around in flying saucers to mutilate cattle and perform genetic experiments, that sort of talk. Yet it turned out to be much worse than that. _It_ was what happened to that certain other town …

"Now that certain town-which-we-shall-not-mention is an entirely different piece of screwed-up real-estate altogether," said the janitor on the right, tracing his phrasing along Douglass' thoughts. "Something like that is _not_ supposed to happen. But since it happened, there's not too much we can do about it. We can try. But we can only do so much. Do _you _know anybody who can patch a crack in reality? Well, that's it."

"I don't want to talk about that place," said Douglass. The fact that the same sort of problems that ruined _that _town could happen again really set off something deeply seated in his mind. Parents always told their children that there was no such thing as monsters. That thing standing in the corner of the bedroom late at night was likely just a shadow thrown by a closet when the moonlight slanted through the window. And the creature that seemed poised on the floor in the gloom, that was probably a pair of pants likely forgotten to be picked up. Parents would then say that there was no such thing as monsters from other worlds. Douglass now knew that his parents were as wrong as they were dead.

That was because monsters _do _exist. Crawling, staggering on malformed limbs, snarling through drooling mouths—at least the creatures that had mouths—and even floating, _they _were on the prowl. Hell, the things known as Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil had nothing on some of the things that _he _had seen. Or maybe those legendary creatures came from the same place all the other monsters did, from some random weak-spot in the fabric of what people call reality?

That was because monsters are not supposed to exist in reality. There is dirt for the ground, clouds in the sky, and sunlight coming down. Everything in between is going to work for nine hours a day. Live, work and die… And that is it. Any talk of anything else is just crazy talk. Or that is supposed to how things are supposed to be.

But that was _not _all there was. Monsters are real. And if one did not look out for the doings of a certain cult, the monsters would take over. Anyone who believed their parents when they said _no such thing as monsters _needs a visit to a certain place that had once been a nice quiet resort-and-vacation town. Maybe a little hit of an amazing substance called White Claudia would help them see the light—or the darkness. Monsters do live in the dark. Better yet, they don't mind daylight, either: the sickly and deathly weak sunlight glowing upon cracked and warped land of nightmares come true.


	18. Chapter 18

_Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead _

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 18—Edge of Sanity

The janitor named Richard kept at maneuvering this vehicle through the darkness. In the front passenger-side seat, the other janitor known as Louie also kept looking ahead. Such as seat was known in more common parlance as the _shotgun _seat. Though the current janitors did not utilize shotguns as part of their regular arsenal against the myriad animals they dealt with, the rather violent sentiment was nevertheless fitting—given the dangers they faced. Also true was how janitors of the past did use modified, short-range shotguns even if getting close enough to the animals could mean death. Being in danger was part of a janitor's job, but suicidal stupidity was not.

Or it could be said that driving this damned fast along a darkened highway was suicidal. They knew that this was the sort of highway that maybe was not _really _a highway. It just so happened to be a prolonged paved surface with the resemblance of a highway. There are rock formations in nature that so happen to resemble bridges, and there are insects such as termites that so happen to build miniature structures that resemble skyscrapers. Yet this was not saying that those natural rock formations were _really _bridges, and those termites were _not _building miniature skyscrapers in imitation of humanity. The same was true for this so-called highway.

The janitors knew that it could be that human beings maybe had nothing to do with the building of this prolonged paved highway. In which case, they could be headed straight for a cliff into infinite darkness. Or they could be headed for the titanium bowels of a gigantic machine that consumed cars much in the same way that birds scoop up crunchy grasshoppers. They were at least reasonably certain that this was the way out.

They were going along this so-called highway now. So far, it seemed, so good. The worst of it was over. There was a bump every so often that gave the girls a jostle every so often. Otherwise, this was getting to be a long and sedating ride, tinged with the feeling of some kind of sickness. It was now infinitely dark outside.

Conversations faded off some minutes ago as they sat back and just went with the ride. _Not much else for us to do, _communicated Cheryl. Though the girl was feeling the edges of sleep coming on, the slight sense of sickness kept her from slipping entirely off into the lull of unconsciousness. Also true was how there were those random huge bumps that rocked the whole car. _Thump! _There went another one. _Well, here's to hoping we don't throw up in the middle of a fast drive. You think they'd stop the car if we did? _

_I'm not sure, _was Heather's thought-out response. _These guys seem pretty hardcore professionals. They're almost like soldiers or something. If we threw up, they'd probably just keep on going—bad sick-smell and all. Or they'd tell us to open up a window or something and scoop it out. It's like they're really dead-set on getting us the Hell out of town—going to that borderland place. _The car gave another _thump_ that jostled them both.

_Yuck. I nearly lost my lunch on that one, _communicated Cheryl. _Like, you'd think the road would be in better condition if no one actually uses it. Maybe it's because folks don't pay much in taxes anymore. Yeah, then they can't pay road crews to fix the damned things and let 'em get all cracked and messed up. _She paused. _Wait a second… What the Hell am I thinking! Since when do monsters pay taxes? I'm starting to think of 'em as people or something, that's what._

Heather gave it a thought. _Since when do monsters need to pay for anything? Well, somebody must've paved this big-long highway. I wouldn't be surprised if the road crew was gobbled up by something with a huge mouth and metal teeth when things got messed up. _

_The poor guys, _responded Cheryl. There was a slight glow of light outside. _Hey, that's different. _Of all this time driving in darkness, any sort of light source out there was bound to get attention. _I wonder what's over there? _

The glow of light from outside the right-side window belonged to an industrial structure far off in the distance—far off in the night-darkened landscape they were speeding through now. Even when moving as fast as this car was now, that structure over there was still a steady part of the distant landscape much as how mountains remain in view for quite some time. Indeed, that industrial area must be the size of a mountain.

The massive structure blazed with lights attached to pipes and bolted to metal tower-structures. Even more light glared from the six flaming smokestacks that flared pure fire up to the infinite night-darkened sky above. _Structure_ was the word in mind because they were unsure if that gigantic place over there was a building or if it was a gigantic machine. Maybe _machine-building _was a more fitting word. They could barely imagine what kinds of twisted creatures existed in that structure.

_Bzzt-hissst! _Such was the sound of the radio to interrupt the peace and rhythm of the ride. It was the sound of something… Not only was the noise loud, but it was ominously mechanical to boot. The rhythmic sounded mixed in with a sort of chaos and buzzing madness. With it came a sort of mechanical thunking back-beat, like the sound of a servo-mechanical machine working in a metal-shaping factory. It was sounds from a hot and forbidden place of grinding machines set in the darkness of another world as sounds of madness whispered out from behind the grating wash-out of noise and interference. If one listened too carefully, one would hear some grunting effort and moans of pain to never be released from hundreds of years of steady suffering, trapped in something awful and physically painful. Then there was how some aspects of the noise that went even deeper than that, beyond this universe…

The girls decided to not listen to the radio any damned more for now. They knew better than to do that. They should have, having been in situations where radio static made for all kinds of dark and disturbing imagery. Yet radios were not to blame for the invisible signals they were picking up. Such was what happened to radios when one entered places being taken over. _They _were taking over.

"Damn… Well, I knew things were too clean and decent," went Louie. "We ought to know those bastards by now. Decency and cleanliness being the opposite of what they are." He turned his head to the left and spoke a bit more loudly. "Ladies, we have a real Devil-stomper of a problem. Hear that on the radio? Well, it ain't the Lucille Ball Happy Hour… And if it is comedy, it isn't the kind we human folks would get. Hmmph, I wish it was happy hour right now at the local drinking spot. Anyway, that means that we could be in for a little bit of trouble."

Louie was kind enough to turn down the radio. The twin girls thought about asking him to turn the thing off completely. But they knew he wouldn't do that. Kind as he was, Cheryl and Heather could sense that there was a sort of hard-core professionalism to the man—to both of the men in the front seats of this vehicle. Even as the radio continued to hiss, crackle and moan with accursed and unholy sounds, the thing would have to stay on. It was the only practical way of detecting any sort of trouble that would crop up.

Cheryl and Heather distracted themselves with staring off into the distance at that machine-building. _It looks like some kind of chemical factory or oil refinery, only weirder, _thought Cheryl. _Those pipes must be there for a reason, carrying chemicals or something_. _Wonder what they make over there?_

"You girls see that place to the right?" asked Louie, as if intercepting their thoughts. "That's a place that ain't been built with human hands. The animals, they got somebody with brains on their side—_smart _people. I'm using _people _loosely, since they ain't people the way you and I'd think. I'm talkin' people from somewhere else. Some of those people are so damned butt-ugly that you'd think they were beaten with the ugly stick for a hundred years. And some of those people, you can't really see sometimes—'cause they're not really all there. Yup, they worked together to build that place over there." He paused, staring at that distant place.

He continued. "Most people would think that human beings are the be-all and end-all of existence. Well, folks like that had best guess again. If we're _not _careful… Have a look around. I signed up for my job when I found out about what those animal were doing. Or maybe you could say that the job found _me._"

"Then those ugly bastards found our reality," chimed in Richard. A meaty _thump-p-p _sounded out from beneath the car. There was then the sound of clinking metal—as if the thing they just ran over was a combination of meat and metal. "Wooh! That was a bad one. Damned thing ran across the road. Anyway, what I'm saying is, _they_ didn't hear about our world until that screwed-up cult of yours decided to give 'em a call. Except…"

_Thump! _That was not the sound of something being run over on the road. That was the sound of Heather banging a fist on the car's arm-rest. "_You shut up!_" she snarled. "_They're _ not _my cult!_" Less loudly, still angry, she declared, "They _killed _my Dad. They probably had something to do with that damned disease that _killed_ my Mom when I was a little kid, to. Now _they _want to do some _crazy stuff _to the whole world. _I'm not one of those jerks! Do you hear me!_"

"_So back off!_" yelled Cheryl, feeling both Heather's anger and her own. In science, it was known as _resonance—_when multiple waves of energy meshed to make for even more intense energy. Such was what Cheryl and Heather were experiencing at the moment—their minds meshing together—their anger red and hot enough to make their vision haze over, making them begin to have hate for anyone and anything nearby.

"I'm asking you kindly to calm down," said Louie. "Being kind to the point of being soft is something that's damned hard for a janitor to do. But I'm doing it for you, to know that I hope you don't take all janitors to be fucking bastards. We're not pathetic. Just weak against some kinds of atattck obnoxious bastards, either."

"And you know what? Some of us have been thinking, that's not really the way to understand the problems as exactly _that_," added Richard. "Maybe a closer way to see it is to think about some kind of disease that eats flesh and…makes it wasted, makes it dead. Think about infection. No, wait… Think about some kind of terminal cancer in somebody with it in the lungs. Everything seems all fine and dandy on the surface. Then there's that absolutely rotten core where everything is older than Hell, all covered with blood and rusted metal. That's the truth."

…

2.

…

The howling of the wind was always was there, moaning and howling outside, a sound that occasionally fell and rose in pitch and loudness. Except, the howling sound in the wind was not quite the result of air blowing across gaps and edges in architecture. No, the sound upon _this _wind was the sound of unseen things. The _things_ were there, beyond the veil of this reality—waiting and anxious to come in. Those unseen things were always pressing at whatever barrier there was between this world and another. _Other_ worlds do exist. Such _Other _worlds, they also contained things—things with minds and wills of their own…

Alessa knew that they were there. The woman could hear them. However, it was not her will that those beings pressing at the thin cosmic barrier be allowed to enter. It was her will that determined how many such beings could enter. Even then, the physical form and appearance they took on would largely be determined by her desires. Or so things went at times in which her will was strongest. Alessa did have her weak moments, feeling exhausted from a great burden of eons ago—when a previous incarnation of herself brought change to a darkened realm, now bringing a semblance of seemingly human order to this realm.

The being known as Alessa was in a dimly lit, hotel-styled living room. What little light there was came from a chandelier of weak lights attached to the ceiling and its peeling paint, revealing rust beneath. That illumination barely made the walls visible—walls of ornate wood paneling and peeling paint barely glossing over it. Regularly spaced portraits and swaths of crimson cloth-bunting added to decoration of the walls. This room was a great deal less friendly looking than one would expect, being a place where one would find so beautiful and elegant a woman.

Alessa was lying upon a sofa of red cushions. Or perhaps _lying _was too simple a word. For such an elegant woman, the word _reclining _would be more fitting: her lithe and exquisite body outlined by the silken cloth of her clinging red gown, the vee-cut neckline tailored as so it exposed the space between her full breasts, exposing skin down to the navel set in a flat abdomen, flanked with the shape of hips flowing into thighs. Her long, graceful arms were at her sides, her long dark hair splayed out. If not seemingly forlorn, Alessa seemed dead and arranged for burial.

So forlorn, she was… Yes, this was one of those moments in which her will was feeling weakened. The female was nevertheless still especially capable of regulating the immigration of other-worldly beings into this reality. There were, however, two entities capable of adding to or rivaling her power and will over this realm.

_Flick-flicker…! _Something was coming. An irritated frown crossed Alessa's delicate face. Whatever it was that was entering, it was strong. Its strength was enough to infiltrate her realm. Whereas the other things struggled and moaned with infinite effort, this being was able to act with ease. It slipped through the barrier separating her realm from the other worlds as if gliding easily through water.

_Wink-blink-blink… Bzzt! _A flickering of the chandelier lights, and then Frank was here: that silvery death-mask with tall ears, a body in six feet of bunny suit, covered with fluffy fur. He cast no shadow though all other objects of this reality did so as required by the laws of physics that dictated electromagnetic energy. Indeed, the entity known as Frank did not necessarily comply with all the recognized laws of physics.

Just then, Alessa gave a sigh. It was as much an expression as annoyance as it was exhaustion—a hint of exasperation. That flat abdomen tensed as the womanly figure sat up and pivoted herself sideways. Her bare feet went to the floor. A single movement, and the elegant figure went from sitting to standing, tall and graceful, swathed in clinging red cloth.

Alessa did not even turn to face the intruder. There was no need for her to focus those large dark eyes of hers on the other entity. In her mind's eye, Frank was just as visible as anything else in her realm—for Alessa could see anything. _Why have you meddled into the doings of this world? It is of none of your concern, _went her thoughts. There was no desire for her to waste even breath in communicating to the entity in the silvery death-mask and bunny suit. _As things stand, also let it be known that I seek to have you destroyed. Begone, foul creature! Lest your very existence be dissolved ._

A collection of twisted, wind-carried voices _how-w-wled _in frustration. Something else moaned. There was a florescent white gleam from the left eyepiece of the entity's silvery mask. _Eternity is the ultimate truth. _The entity bowed his head. _Time judges all things._

Alessa arched her neck, tilting back her head. Doing so exposed fine details of her throat as her laughter filled this darkened room. "_Aa-a-ah, hah-hah-hah-hah-hah...!_" As her sound echoed out, the moaning became more aggressive. The windows vibrated—windows looking out into darkness. Something shadowy was halfway here and appearing translucent before walking off into a wall. "_Hah-hah-hah-hah…_" A collection of thumps pounded in agreement. Then Alessa's laughter died down, her neck still arched, the wind and other sounds dying down.

_There is no defeating of eternity, _communicated that entity wearing the silvery death-mask. _Your end has come to pass before. Your end will come to pass again. _There was a pause. _The end is the beginning._

A calm and confident look on her face, Alessa regarded Frank. _What are you, insisting upon knowing the end of all things? You, yourself… What would you know of eternity? My past incarnation had come to know the birth of time itself! _Another shadow faded into this reality, appeared in a left-side corner behind Frank—like a man-shaped cloud of black smoke. The quality of the air itself became heavy and cold as the lights darkened, the shadow crossing the room before approaching the wall to step out of this reality.

_There are other worlds, _declared Frank in response. _Your presence disrupts this world. Truth seeks to return. Truth is inevitable… _The entity suddenly looked up, its silvery death-mask tilted up towards the ceiling of peeling paint on a metal surface. More than that, the entity was looking beyond the ceiling, looking to the infinite darkness of this place. _Eh-hah! _

Thunder echoed somewhere in the infinite darkness outside. Lightning flickered outside the window made for a split-second glimpse of the wasteland spread out below and beyond this place as something hairy and lumpy flew through the distant sky, the windows then returning to that view of infinite darkness.

_Thump-thump-thump...! _Things in the walls began pounding again, furiously trying to get in while the entity in the bunny suit so easily entered and was able to manipulate it. _Thump-thump-thump! _The howling took on a human-like pitch.

Alessa tilted her head to the left, eyes looking upwards as her silken dark hair cascading away from her left ear. Her lips slightly pouting, the expression on her face was one of listening… _They are not at all pleased with what you say to me, _went Alessa's thought. Her eyes turned to focus on the entity dressed in the bunny suit. _After all, it is not you who has the wherewithal to address matters of eternity. In the vast sway of all existence, it is your existence that is young. Speaking of existence, we no longer have patience enough to tolerate yours in this reality._

Those sounds on the wind picked up again. _Thump-thump-thump…! _More pounding and such began to sound out from beyond the walls, from _inside _the walls. Lights flickered, and something appeared in the corner.

Like some other kinds of beings from other realities, the creature had a human-like shape to the body. The thing had a head, along with two arms and two legs attached to a chubby torso. It was even dressed in something like clothes. But beyond that, the thing could not at all be called human.

No human being could ever dress that way and remain sane. Its shirt was soaked with some kind of mucous-like secrection, its long trenchcoat made of what could have been human skin. The creature's pants were made of some scaled material that still seemed alive as small hair-like tentacles along the hem-lines writhed. That is, the skin used to make the pants was still alive. The skin of the humanoid creature itself was lumpy with green sores, an entire body of sores. It was this thing in the living clothes that approached the entity in the bunny suit.

Yet the thing in the bunny suit suddenly blurred out of this reality. It reappeared on the opposite side of the room. _You cannot touch what will remain, _declared the entity. _We are the truth of this domain. Eternity cannot change. _The thing in the bunny suit then blurred again as the thing in the human-skin trenchcoat made another few steps towards it.

That was when the man-thing in the human-skin trenchcoat changed up strategies. It decided to take up position near the center of the room. It reached within its trenchcoat for an object—pulled it out. The object had a rusted metal shell. Odd knobs rested upon the device's top, along with symbols of a writing that could not be found on Earth. The thing used scaled fingers to click one knob to the left. This made for a sort of change to the air, the air itself seeming to fill with rippling blurs, making the entity in the bunny suit blur out of existence.

_Eh-hah! _The entity began to blur back into this reality. This time, the entity had some difficulty in doing so—as it only managed to come only somewhat into focus. It raised one costume-furred paw-hand. Distortion ripples appeared in the fabric of reality, as if reality was made of water. The other costume-furred paw-hand went up, also pressing forward—pressing the barrier.

In response, the man-thing wearing the human-skin trenchcoat made more adjustments. It _clicked _that same knob on the device another notch to the left. The air itself took on a thicker quality. Another professional click of a knob, and it continued attempts at making things harder for the entity in the bunny suit. Whatever it was doing with that machine, it was ratcheting up the intensity.

Alessa looked on in interest. The elegant woman's power was stretched thin at the moment. With that was also exhaustion. Maintaining things as they were took that much out of her. There was also little that could be done in terms of most other things entering this reality. So many others often did. Except the entity known as Frank was something else—one of those trans-dimensional presences that could do things to the fabric of reality itself. This went even while the machine of the creature in human-skin trenchcoat was doing something else with that rusted boxy device.

_Bzzt! _This entity in the silvery death-mask and furry bunny suit and death mask bowed its head. A sudden bglare flashed out from his left eye, that glare into which one could stare deeply... Looking deeply made for a view of a blazingly bright whiteness that seemed to look into another reality that looked just as heavenly as this reality looked Hellish at times. One also had the impression of bright light glowing onto a relatively clear ladnscape.

_You want what you cannot have, _declared the entity in the bunny suit and death-mask. _All such temptation mus be held in contempt. Eh-hah! _That second statement from the figure was to somehow eliminate the figure wearing the death mask and bunny suit. The creature in the human-skin trenchcoat and pant was good enough to hold Frank's abilities at bay.

A janitor appeared jus as the figure in the bunny disappeared. _Another intruder! _"_Kill it!_" shhrieked Alessa with her voice. _Kill it! Murder its offspring! See to it that it has no further existence!_ As soon as Alessa said those words, the janitor took on a puzzled face. Something dark and questionable was coming—something made of smokes and shadows. And let it be known that the dark, bright eyes and foretold by fortune and gyromancy, the world was aging at a rapid pace—perhaps too old to care. Yet _something _was ruining Alessa's peace.

Of course the janitor would not go quietly. It glared at Alessa even as the intensity of the energy amplified. That man-thing wearing the trenchcoat of human skin, it was using that little machine to make things worse. Also true was how that dwarf-like like mass of smoke and shadows was closing in on the janitor. So the janitor turned and walked out of this reality. The man-thing wearing the trenchcoat of skin, it turned off the little machine. "_Tarko-plof,_" it growled.

Alessa was both pleased and displeased. Pleasing was how the invaders into her realm could be eliminated and removed. Yet the fact that such entities were weaning their way into this realm at all, it was becoming troublesome. Was her power becoming so weakened as to allow those accursed, meddling blue workers break in?


	19. Chapter 19

Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 19—Sometimes People Fall

That last double-set of thumps on the road really woke up both girls—along with giving them a jolt of pain. _Jeez! That one went right to the spine! We're both gonna need some kind of whiplash treatment when this crazy road-trip is over. _"Like, is there any way you could ease up on the wild cowboy driving a little?" asked Cheryl. "We didn't bring our Stetson hats and high-heeled boots."

"And what's the deal with this messed-up road, anyway?" added Heather. "We're getting away from where most of the buildings, so there oughtta be less junk to run over, right? How much crap can there be on the highway in the middle of nowhere?"

_Thump-bump!_ After that latest disturbance, Louie gave a response. "You really want this road fixed? I'd give that mother-figure of yours a call on the phone and ask her smoke-breathing road-crew monsters to patch things up. Yeah girl, they really do breathe smoke. I've seen 'em, big ugly bastards. They'll be really glad to take their nuclear-powered jackhammers to break up the messed up parts of the road before they use ground-up human bones to repave everything." He shook his head—not that the gesture was fully visible in the indirect light cast by headlights outside this car. "Well, you deserve a better explanation. It's too bad I ain't got much of one, but it something. It goes something like this.

"Think about this. We're in the border-lands, right? We're headed out where everything is more than a little on the not-real side. You know how things tend to be on the patchy side around construction sites? It's gonna be a building, but it ain't one yet. Floors haven't been finished, there are dangerous bits of equipment and pipes everywhere, that sort of deal.

"This whole land seems to be like a construction site. That bitch-mother-god-want-to-be Alessa ain't got around to fully making this place. Go figure. Playing devil-god can take a lot out of a person. And maybe Alessa will never get around to making this place decent, tired as she is. That town you were in, it was a good enough illusion to serve the purpose—a nice quaint little bubble of phony reality where everything seemed normal. Out here…? Why bother? Nobody is supposed to go out here, anyway." _Thu-thump-squeak!_ "Nobody's out here except people who don't belong. And guess what? We're it!" _Bump-bump-bump-bump…_

"Uh oh! This vehicle's just about had it!" declared Richard. "We're lucky just to be on four wheels right now. Get ready to use up some shoe-rubber soon." That janitor then spent some minutes wrestling the steering wheel. "The rack-and-pinion of the steering mechanism has just about gone to crap—probably because of the way things are near the borderlands. Ordinary machinery, they always gets a little messed up around here. It's like anything made by humans gets aged in a hurry or something."

"We get what we pay for! And what did we pay for this car? Crap, that's what we paid for it!" responded Louie. "You should've seen the creature sitting behind the wheel of this thing when we found it in some driveway. How the Hell can an animal with no hands drive a car? Yeah, and its three heads would probably be too busy arguing to drive decently. At least we got it to come out of the car before we had to kill the thing. Otherwise there would've been animal blood all over."

Heather and Cheryl were both getting tired of getting smart-assed answers to every one of their questions. The degree of anger in their minds so severe that they barely heard what was said. They didn't need that old guy in the janitor-soldier's getup telling them to not complain about the really messed-up bumps. All they wanted was some basic information. Instead, the old jerk was trying to make them feel stupid about not understanding this world. It's not like they dealt with roadways paved through the landscape of an alternate reality on an everyday basis. Maybe those two guys in the front seats both dealt with this sort of business like that often, but not everyone did.

"_You listen to us,_" snarled Heather. "We don't _need _you to give us smart-assed comments every time we ask you something, _okay!_" _Thu-thump… _"All we did was ask one simple little question. We didn't ask for that big stupid comedy routine. Things are bad enough as they are." _Bumpa-thump!_

"Could you calm it down a little?" asked Richard. "Hate to say, but it's getting just a little bit harder to steer with two angry girls in the back seats. And you two getting angry out here is _not_ a good idea. You know what I mean?"

To that, the girls were getting so heated with anger that their vision was hazing over with red while their own angry pulse seemed to pound in their ears. Worse still was how each girl not only had her own individual anger within her own mind, but they also felt each other's anger.

"You shut up! We don't need some crazy old man telling us off, being _insulting!_" yelled Cheryl. "We didn't _ask _for any of this crazy mess to happen! It just did!" _Thu-thump! _"Things happen!" _Bu-bump-bu-bu-bu-bump-bump! Swish-h-h-h…_

Just then, the road became unusually smooth. There was just the smooth running hum of rubber on the road and the wind sound of air flowing around the car body. The radio, which was making slight interference sounds, became quiet as well. Cheryl and Heather looked around. They wondered what just happened. It was too damned quiet. Something radically different must be going on. Then came Richard's shout.

"_A-a-augh!_ What the Hell is he doing there!" yelled the janitor as he tried to steer clear of something standing in the middle of the road. Then came all the horrific rapid-fire sounds of a major car accident. Despite all the experience and skill that Richard had with motor vehicles, he could not stop this.

Those wheels of the car were already damaged from scraping the wheel well and on hitting the various sharp pieces of incomplete world that cluttered the road. Also true was how the bumps jarred the rack-and-pinion setup, knocking out some of the gears' teeth in the mechanism and therefore ruining the car's steering badly enough. Compounded with the thing about machinery tending to get old quickly, and one could maybe see how the accident could happen. The fact that there was someone or something standing in the middle of the God-damned road and Richard trying to get the messed-up steering to actually steer at such a high speed was all it took. Tires screamed and squealed in struggling to maintain grip on the road.

A horrific childhood memory came back to both Cheryl and Heather. In their respective lives, in their respective realities, they both experienced that awful car-accident with their father. They were only six years old at the time. However, the experience was traumatic enough for them to be forever embedded in the depths of the mind. It happened at night. And it was night right now. The man behind the wheel then was steering to avoid someone in the middle of the road. Now that man at the wheel had done the same. _Oh no, _came the thought to both girls' minds… _Not again, not again, not again…!_

There was a Hellish _spwack_ sound of metal at the front-left side of the car as the wheel locked up while the other three wheels were still spinning, inertia making the rest of this car wanted to go forward. It made this car pitch upwards and forwards—much like doing a cartwheel. Then there was an evil roller-coaster feeling as this whole damned car flipped forward and left the road going upwards and turning in the air. _We're gonna die, _came the thought. _That crazy guy driving the car really messed up big-time. Now we're gonna be road pizza. We're all… _

It was over mercifully quickly. The sudden impact was a riotous sound of obliterated car-metal that sounded like the end of the world. With it came sudden pain that bloomed into a dazzling array. Then everything suddenly plunged into the darkness of unconsciousness. At least the girls did not have to worry any more.

…

_You have been this way before, _came the mind-voice of the entity. It was _that _entity, the six-foot creature wearing the silvery death-mask, body covered with the furry bunny suit. It stood in the darkness. _You know what must be done. Even if you do not want to know, you know. _There was a blazing florescent white glare from both the creatures' eyes—intense enough to make for a horizontal glare, a blazing white horizon that seemed like a view into another place. _Wake up…_

…

_Cheryl at first…_felt numb. Then came the pain. There was a sharp pain in the back of her neck as she tried to move. "_Ow-w-w_…" she complained as more of her body's pain became apparent. When the warm wasteland wind blew, it also blew across the scrapes on her right arm. She was still lying on her back, her legs awkwardly spread and her left arm pinioned underneath her. She could feel hard sandy ground through the tight fabric of her jeans and the thin material of her sleeveless shirt. Sitting up slowly and painfully, the pain in her neck hurt her every time she tried to turn her head. _At least my neck isn't broken, _she thought. But something else felt wrong. It wan not something quite physical. It was just this feeling, a sort of newly empty feeling, like she lost something very important.

From that sitting up position, Cheryl was able to stand up—a _pain _at the base of her neck making her do so carefully. Two legs, two arms… And her head was still on her neck, still attached to her body—even if her neck _hurt worse than anything! _Then she _carefully _looked around, largely by pivoting on her butt. This highway illuminated with lights not too far away, coming from the direction of thrumming machinery.

It took even more of an effort to stand up with her aches and pains of smaller injuries and the back of her neck giving a twinge of pain—making her walk as if she was balancing something on her head. The girl began walking towards the flipped over wreck of a car. _Are you there? _She didn't feel Heather's presence. Nor did she hear any sort of response from Heather's mind. _Are you hurt? _There was still no response she could immediately hear—not hear with her mind or her ears. That was because Heather was dead.

Heather's body was closer to the wreckage of the car, outlined with the blazingly bright industrial lights that were not too far away—bright lights blazing from a place with faint thrumming, thumping machines. Even those faint thrumming sounds seemed to cover up any hope of her hearing the sound of Heather breathing. The glare of the lights dazzled her eyes as so she could not even see the movement of Heather's chest as she breathed where she laid upon the road.

_Heather? Talk to me, please, _communicated Cheryl. Winds howled from the wastelands and blew across the road. _Please… Please talk to me! _She thought those things in walking numbly towards where the other girl's body lay oh-so-still and not at all moving or responding, so awkwardly positioned. Despite the worrisome pain in her own neck and a pins-and-needles feeling throughout her body, Cheryl found herself running—the jeans seeming to restrict the movement of her thighs as she moved, the wind seeming too cold on her bare arms, wind slapping her face and pulling her hair. It seemed as if she could not get there fast enough, every slight jostle in her jog sending blazes of pain up and down her spine. Even the eighteen meters' distance seemed to take forever to run.

When she was within steps of Heather's body, Cheryl collapsed to her knees and tried making her more comfortable. Heather's legs were obscenely spread, so Cheryl arranged them as so they were close together, feet together. She then pulled on Heather's left arm to get it out from how it was twisted beneath her back. Her blue-green eyes were open, her mouth open. "Heather, you'll be okay, right?" There was no response from that open mouth. _Come on, tell me you'll be okay. _

But Cheryl knew that Heather was not okay. Heather was not alive. Now she was as cold and as uncaring as a corpse can be. Yes, Heather's body had long since cooled. Cheryl felt the cold skin in moving an arm that was frightfully pale, even in the florescent light shining beyond the car wreckage. There was no breathing. And her eyes just stared blankly at the infinite darkness above, seeing nothing. There was dried blood around her lips like some grotesque parody of grape jam, blood that no longer flowed. So this wasn't Heather anymore. Now it was just a dead body. This was just a dead body on the pavement of the road.

The sound that came from Cheryl's open mouth was a mixed storm of misery, pain and anger. It was new-found misery in that Heather was dead, taken from her. It was also the pain of how this was just so damned sudden—not even the slightest of warnings other than a final sound of metal when the car crash-landed. And the anger was in the _stupidity of this all! _

For once, Cheryl finally had someone in her life that fully understood her. She _finally _had someone who was close to her, someone to confide in. That was because Heather was exactly like Cheryl—brought to her by an amazing one-out-of-a-trillion twist of cosmic distortion between one universe and another. Now something so _stupid _as a car accident took her away just…like…that… Just as Dad was murdered, just as her Mom died because of that stupid disease, now as the twin sister she never knew, they were all murdered by stupid, dumb, bad and outright _evil_ luck.

Everything blurred over as tears came to her eyes. _Damn, _went her thought. _Damn, damn, damn…! Why'd you have to be dead! _ She could hear her own pulse in her ears and could not stop her own sobs. _Damn this all… _A back-handed wipe of her left hand across her eyes, and her eyesight temporarily cleared. She could see clearly enough to see the dull glint of the strange handgun that lie on the road an arm's length away from Heather's body.

_Don't worry. I'll get revenge for what happened, _thought Cheryl. _I'll kill everything that ruined the road and had you killed. _With that in mind, the girl on her knees bent over and cradled the cold face in her hands, palms on the cheeks. She kissed Heather's cold lips, tasted the dried blood there. She then closed Heather's eyes. _I'll keep killing until it's enough. _

The girl stood up and gave a final glance to Heather's corpse. Walking around it, she approached the strange pistol that lie on the road and illuminated by those lights a bit down the road. She then knelt just long enough to pick up the pistol. It felt oddly heavy for such a small weapon, the pistol's hand-grip feeling thick and hard—some kind of thick mixture of metal and plastic. Also true was how the barrel had strange ridges near the muzzle. The weapon looked strange enough in the janitors' hands when she saw them with it. And now it seemed even more odd up close. She read the bas-relief lettering that ran along the weapon's thick barrel: _Bolton_ _Hyperblaster KCOA. _

Heather never heard of any gun-maker called _Bolton, _nor had she ever heard of a pistol called a _Hyperblaster, _and she was even less sure of what _KCOA _stood forNevertheless, when she saw the janitors use it against those dirt-eating dog-things, they never had to reload it. _A pistol with unlimited ammo and never has to be reloaded, _she thought. _This will be very handy. _She thumbed off the weapon's safety—feeling some strange energy thrumming to life within the pistol's plasti-metal casing. Indeed, the pistol felt very powerful.

_You will do what you will do, _came the voice of that entity. With it came flashes of imagery and thought. The flashes…_of thought were glimpses of two man-like creatures. The two man-like creatures only looked like men in that they had two arms and two legs, having a head atop their torsos, also dressing in clothes. Except these beings were not at all human—their heads wrapped in bandages made from other-worldly cloth as their three-fingered hands worked some strange machines. These strange machines were set at this land's border—keeping the barrier between this artificial reality and the outside. They kept the outside from coming in, assisting Alessa in maintaining this lie within a larger truth. _

_With that, the flashes of thought…_stopped. Cheryl now knew what she needed to know. Standing up, the pistol held close, the girl walked past the wreckage of the overturned and obliterated car, also walking past the dead bodies of the janitors—both of which also looked uninjured from casual glances, yet were also as dead as Heather. Cheryl did not worry about that now if she could worry about anything. She paused just long enough to put the pistol in her right pocket—as so she could make ready her switchblade—the blade itself an inch thick.

Switchblade in one hand, pistol in the other, she was ready. Her steps were now taking her to that small industrial area from which the light and machine sounds came. Indeed, the thing to do was to destroy them all. Even if it could be the end of her, they would all pay.

…

2.

…

The place from which the bright lights shone, it resembled a small-scale industrial complex, a machine-building on a smaller scale. It was a setup about the size of one of those mini-mansions elsewhere in the town of Sunset Meadows—three stories high and pretty sizable looking left and right. Except, this place was far from being one of those grand luxury places. This was a structure that was all engines and pipes with wires and lights, everything thrumming and clanking. Clanking, thumping and thrumming along, the machines had pipes interconnecting various parts of the structure along with more pipes going into the reddish sandy ground. Flaming smokestacks steadily burned red flames up into the darkness above. Engine-sized machines set on the ground itself had thick electrical cables connecting them to the primary structure and were bolted to the ground with thick spikes that occasionally gave off blue sparks. That, and the pipes seemed to leak somewhat. It was not as if monsters ever gave a damn about environmental regulations anyway—not that there was much nature out here.

And there were the entities that ran the machinery. In that vision from Frank, there were odd man-like beings with heads wrapped in bandages. They were somewhat visible if one looked at spaced gaps between the exterior pipes of the machine-building—glimpses of bandage-wrapped heads within the machine, heads that bobbed and vibrated as those entities worked the eldritch mechanisms with those three-fingered hands at the ends of quivering arms. They were all lost within the noise and thrum of the machine-building.

As Cheryl approached the machine-building, the reason for this being called the borderlands became apparent. There was a different sort of quality to the air and the landscape beyond the structure. Looking beyond it, she could see that there was a large and flat vertical area, almost a wall of heat or something that made the air ripple. Then there were the things beyond the rippling invisible barrier, things pushing and struggling against it… And occasionally, one of the things would be able to get a flicker of a limb into view. Cheryl would maybe get a glimpse of a leathery wing. Or sometimes there was the occasional side-view of a miscolored creature the size of an elephant, but with blue skin and no legs—some kind of gigantic worm. Something short and wearing a silvery suit bounced along before again returning into that darkness beyond the machine-building. Whatever was out there, there were a _lot_ of them. And something about the power of the machine-building was holding the hordes back and keeping them out of the local landscape, just as there were two other machine-buildings elsewhere doing the same.

Obviously, her switchblade was not going to be of much help, so she put it away. She instead readied the strange pistol she held in her right hand: clicking off the weapon's safety. And when she took aim, a bright red laser-straight line blazed out to cast a glowing dot into the machine-building… Oh, look. Her aim cast the glowing red dot right on one of those bobbing bandage-wrapped heads. Cheryl carefully squeezed the trigger.

_Pwoosh_…A lick of blue flame shot out from the pistol's muzzle, and the creature's bandage-wrapped head snapped sideways—its angry squealing piercing the dark air. _Flick-flicker! _One of the lights on the machine-building began to malfunction. There was a roaring from the darkness. Whatever was out there beyond the barrier, they wanted _in. _

_No problem, _thought Cheryl. _You monsters will get your day pretty damned soon. _She thought this even as the edges of a headache began to leak into her head. It was also becoming a little warmer. Heat and something else was radiating from the machine building now. Whichever man-thing she shot in that building, it must have had something like an important role. If they were dumb enough to keep their heads by openings in the machine-building, then she would just have to teach them to not do so.

There was another gap in the machine-building, up near where the metal smokestacks were shooting flames up into the infinitely dark sky. Now some of those flames became more erratic, sputtering and stuttering. Another one of those creatures with bandage-wrapped vibrating heads, it poked the before-mentioned part of its anatomy outside. Cheryl took aim—the bright laser-sight from the odd pistol putting a glowing red dot on the head. _Pwoosh_…

Another creature's head was yanked to the side as it caught the invisible projectile with its skull, dark fluid spattering. When the head went still, no longer vibrating, the oddly clothed corpse slid out from the building…to go falling…and going _squnch_ on one of the horizontal pipes near the ground. _Flicker-blink-blink! _Another one of the lights began to stutter and spasm. And that latest workplace death made things begin to happen.

First noticeable was an increased feeling of pressure in her head. She winced as a fresh wave of headache pain streaked through her already aching head, like things wanting to get into her skull. There was also a feeling of more heat coming from the machine-building. The steady rhythmic thrumming over there from the machines was also upset, becoming over overcome with thumping sounds. That was when something wonderous and strange came striding out of the building, something that could have been human.

Possibly human as it could have been, there was no way in Hell that the entity could ever walk along a street without people pointing and becoming upset. It had a passably human body, generally speaking—a huge fat body that was at least ten feet tall—a body clad in a gigantic gray-white religious robe, with billowing sleeves to accommodate the huge arms that ended in three-fingered hands. Yet it was of normal head size… That is, every one of its thirteen heads were of normal size. All thirteen of the entity's heads were topped with hair, all with unblemished skin and large eyes, mouths open. It was a creature with a _chorus _of heads. All the mouths opened and began to make sound…

It was a truly awful sound, something out of distorted nightmares and insane minds. It was also the sound of sixty different kinds of animals thrown alive into a slow-acting meat grinder. Mixed in with that was also the sound of elderly people skinned with dull machine-blades. Moreover true was how it could then be said to be the sound of half a dozen air-raid sirens just as a swarm of nuclear missiles came flying into a city, soon to obliterate everything in a final florescent blaze of white brightness.

As soon as her head was clear enough, the girl took aim and fired at one of the heads. _Pwoosh_…The other twelve heads went open-mouthed in shock when one of their number was holed through the face. _Hey, no problem, _thought Cheryl_. I've got enough ammo for everyone—unlimited ammo. _Then she just kept firing, firing some more even as the multi-headed man-thing tried to turn and waddle away on its chunky legs—the elephantine limbs pounding and struggling beneath the white robe. At least four of the heads were dead now, hanging limp and leaking dark life-fluid. Cheryl was unsure if she had killed enough of the thing's heads.

_Oh no you don't, you ugly bastard. _She boldly strode towards the staggering man-thing and its chorus of heads. _Pwoosh_…A shot in the leg made it stagger. Another shot made it collapse chest-forward…falling to the hot and dusty red ground. It became something fallen. As if a gigantic child, it made mewling sounds and was trying to get up. Those huge arms tried pressing ineffectually at the ground while the legs squirmed, some of the heads still bleeding dark fluids to the artificially illuminated ground.

Cheryl made her next move. She walked over to the struggling thing where it pathetically struggled as some of its multiple heads bleated into the dust. Killing the thing with a pistol, that was not enough. No, Cheryl wanted to _feel _this thing's death as she killed it. So she clicked on the odd pistol's safety mechanism before tucking it diagonally into the back-waistband of her jeans. Then out came her switchblade.

Standing with legs apart to keep her balance, the girl raised the switchblade. And she certainly used as much strength as possible in bringing _down _the blade. It pierced one of the creature's heads—making that head wriggle and spasm. As the other heads made nightmarish sounds of complaint, Cheryl pulled out the switchblade and began to puncture the rest of the heads.

The man-thing stopped struggling at some point. But that was long before Cheryl stopped stabbing at the heads. Her arms—left bare by her sleeveless top—were now coated with the dark life-fluid of the multi-headed thing, some more of the fluid splattered across the front. Some of it was on her face, a face that held a satisfied look.

_Bzzt_… _Wink-flicker! _The lights from the machine-building were beginning to fail. Sounds of a distant storm brewed in the air, deep rumbling sounds. Dozens of creatures, hundreds and hordes of all kinds of things were out there and getting ready to come in. And then there was the sky…

A blood-colored sky was getting to be visible. With it came the squealing sounds of all of those various creatures and a reddening of the landscape beyond the machine-building. There was an entire _landscape _beyond the machine-building—a rocky landscape with fallen-in buildings. A broken-down truck in the distance was next to a crashed flying vehicle. Something broke through and flew upwards—something with leathery wings.

An air-raid siren increased in noise as a headache closed over. Cheryl's mouth opened as severe pain filled her head. "_Oww_…" she complained, though the sound of her own suffering was lost in the siren-wail now filling the air. They were coming. As the machine-building wailed louder and began to malfunction, the veil of darkness beyond the machine went crashing down. _Eh-hah!_ A blaze of light appeared behind her. It was such an intense blazing light that was so bright that Cheryl had to squint tightly… She ran to it—into Frank's light.


	20. Chapter 20

Silent Hill—The Manipulated Dead 

by Elliot Bowers

"She Would Die For Love"

vocals by Julee Cruise

Lyrics by David Lynch

Music by Angelo Badalamenti

Chapter 20—The End is The Beginning

Heather's body laid there upon the hard, paved highway—lying still. There was no breathing. Eyes stared blindly up into the infinite darkness above this land. The corpse did not lie there long enough to decompose. Heather's corpse did, however, take on that certain degree of stiffness known as _rigor mortis. _When alive, her skin was normally on this side of pale, and death did little to change the complexion. Also true was how the nuclear-powered lights from a bit farther along the highway made anything seem deathly pale. And it was not as if Heather cared how long she laid there upon the highway because Heather was dead. Dead people do not care.

Then again, the term _highway_ was not likely the proper term, it just so happening to resemble a highway. Whatever it was truly called in the name of its creators, the paved surface did not necessarily seem so hard. It was merely a surface. As for the unblinking stare of the green eyes, they did not blink despite being dried by the winds of this darkened landscape, unusually warm winds that swished along the flat wasteland, across the darkened highway, blowing across the corpse to send ripples along the sleeveless shirt worn by Heather's corpse, playing with the styled blonde hair. The road was not hard and the wind did not irritate because—to the dead—the petty discomforts of the living are no bother at all. Again comes the same consideration, or lack of it depending on one's outlook. Again, _dead people do not care_.

So the dead body gave no reaction to all the miscellaneous activity happening farther down the highway-that-was-not-necessarily-a-highway. Oh, and what activity it was—so wondrous and strange, so loud and chaotic! _Someone _had killed those man-like creatures that maintained and operated the machine-building at the border. That _someone _had therefore touched off a series of reactions that came about as a result of the machines not being able to keep out the larger reality. Add to the fact that machines in this place tended to malfunction a great deal quicker than other places, and the results were more than likely to occur.

The malfunctions, the reactions, they were all coming to a head. Those nuclear-powered lights of the machine-building began to _wink-flick-flicker _as machinery continued to buzz-sputter and fail. As for the red flames that were supposed to just shoot up from the exhaust pipes at the top of the machine-building, they began to also come out from other parts of the machine-building. There was an intense rippling effect to the air due to massive amounts of heat. Except, this heat was not exclusively from flames. It was heat indirectly generated by a massive flood of _radiation. _Locally, this landscape was being flooded with invisible deadly radiation. If Heather was alive and it was not her corpse lying there, it would certainly be something to worry about. Flames gushed out from the uppermost windows of the machine-building. And the air continued to ripple and waver… Then came the sounds of the animals awaiting this very moment—even if the various creatures on the other side of the barrier did not belong anywhere on Earth.

Those animals were coming—were trying to come in. That barrier keeping out the larger reality was beginning to weaken. And those animals would not, not, _not wait any damned more. _The sounds of human-like cries and moans was mixed in with the sound of leathery wings beating the air, along with the sound of odd hand-like feet beating the dry reed ground. Some did not have feet at all and slithered along this ground of reddish dirt once illuminated by the nghtlights of the machine-building. Now a different light was coming from that once-hidden horizon.

The way that light glowed in from the revealed horizon, it was like a sunrise—except not a sunrise known to those who lived on modern-day Earth. There was a roiling florescent orange sky of clouds overhead. At ground level was reddish dirt to match. There were fallen, oddly shaped buildings in the distance. Also off in the distance were scattered dots of myriad things moving fast any way they could in getting here. They were coming and would be here by the hoards as soon as that barrier went down.

The corpse on the road simply laid there. Even with the radical changes happening to the nearby sky, even as gray and chaotic hordes of creatures kept galloping, there was no stirring of musculature in those dead legs, nor did either of the arms. A dead face had no emotion other than calmness and a slight look of surprise gleaned upon the moment of death. Otherwise, there was no change. _Dead people do not care._

_Eh-hah… Hah…! _First being heard, the entity in the silvery death-mask and furry gray bunny suit appeared near to where the corpse's sneakers-covered feet rested heels-first on the asphalt. The figure in the bunny suit blurred for a moment, the corpse's left leg held in one furry paw. There was a horizontal blaze of bluish-white light ahead… Then the creature in the bunny suit began to walk a ponderous walk that was a parody of human movement.

_Drag, drag, dra-a-a-aah-h-hg… _The buttocks and upper back of the corpse were being scraped along the asphalt, arms trailing, dragged along and not caring. There was no telling what kinds of stones, materials, bones and what-not were ground up into making the roadway and making for scrapes. The scraping continued as the entity approached the white light and kept going, the corpse in tow—dragged in much the same manner as a child would drag a large rag-doll. Then the creature in the rabbit suit and the corpse it dragged were both gone.

…

_Jeez, this really sucks, _thought the girl as exhaustion colored her thoughts. Her head was down as her sneakers-covered feet continued to beat out that slow pace. Left foot, right foot…left foot, right foot… She would get to wherever she was going eventually. Wherever that was, it was any place with civilization.

Cheryl had been walking for hours now. How long, she just did not know. Her wristwatch had stopped working some time before she woke up on the side of the highway—a highway cutting along those flat grasslands that ran between cities. _Damned cheap watch, _she griped. Well, she always had to save money every way possible—didn't really want to buy a watch in the first place. When a person made below-minimum wage, even a few bucks was a lot. She bought it at one of those discount stores other than the mall; most everything at the mall being outside of her price-range. Then again, she could not necessarily blame the watch itself: Since when were wrist-watches guaranteed to work despite transitions between alternate universes?

Both soles of her feet felt like someone had been smacking them with steel plates, then bolting those steel plates in place. Those sneakers of hers were designed for lightly ambling along the slick-smooth surfaces of malls and the smoothed concrete of city-building floors, not the gritty rocks of a highway or the grass along the side. And the fact that she had not eaten in hours did not help much.

At the least, by way of some oddball miracle, there were solitary bottles of pre-sweetened "health drinks" placed at regular intervals along the road. Every so often, for whatever reason, she would come across one of those dark, tea-colored bottles. Who put them there, how they got there, Cheryl just did not know.

There was another one, sitting innocently along the side of the road with its circular bottom on the paved surface—as if somebody put them there very recently. Feeling pretty damned tired, she bent over and grabbed the bottle of drink. Well, being short meant that she didn't have to reach too far down anyway—even if bending over did make her legs ache a little more...

If she stopped now, would she be able to walk on? It was _how_ many miles to the next town? She looked far along the highway, the sun overhead and the long road Hell, she didn't even know if this world _had _towns. It _looked _like her reality or Heather's reality. Or this could be one of those _Other _worlds. And maybe in this world, there wasn't going to _be _a next town. Maybe she would instead just keep walking until she starved to death.

_Well, whatever, _she thought. The girl just sat right down by the roadside. Sighing once, she stretched out jeans-covered legs—crossed them at the ankles as she stayed sitting upright. A slight twist of the bottle's cap, and she could now drink the sweet liquid. propped herself up with her left arm. _Well, it's not too bad, _she thought. _At least I won't die of thirst. Die of hunger or exhaustion maybe, but not of thirst. That's right, I'm gonna have survived hundreds of ugly monsters, but now I'm gonna drop dead from something boring and stupid. _

At least it was getting to be a pretty nice day to die. It was getting to be a sunny day—and a very cool one. That sky ahead also looked like a normal sky, along with how this grass around here seemed like normal grass. Cheryl regarded the oh-so-long highway ahead and thought, _Damn_.

It sort of stretched off into the grassy horizon of the green plains. It was this highway—flanked by flat green plains—that gently sloped sideways and had distant hills and dips, so much so that the road seemed to go over one hill and down out of sight. Who knows, maybe that last dip was a pit into darkness? At least she would have a definite end to herslf. _Death is not the end. The end is the beginning. _

As soon as the thought echoed through her mind, the girl exclaimed "Who said that!" The girl looked around and saw no one. All of the soreness and pain of her body was shoved away in a flood of adrenaline. Something just happened. What it was, she did not know. How could _he _be here?

…

2.

…

And she would find out how! Cheryl slammed down the glass bottle of sweetened drink—chipping the glass bottom—and stood up snappingly quick. She quickly regretted the maneuver as streaks of pain cut through travel-worn muscles. It was almost enough to make her sit down again… Yet the girl had heard _him. _That entity was here. If it was able to communicate, it must be somewhere in this world now.

Well, _somebody _must have left all of these thirst-quenching bottles of drink along the roadside. There was nobody else out here. But how…? Suddenly, Cheryl felt somewhat uncomfortable. What world did those drinks come from? For all she knew, those drinks maybe were not approved for human consumption by the standards of this reality. Maybe in some other universe, it was perfectly fine to toss in crazy ingredients to make people a little bit crazy. Did the FDA exist in an alternate reality? Maybe she ought to read the ingredients' label at the next bottle she gets.

But about Frank, entities like him were not supposed to exist in real life. Was this real life? So much crazy stuff happened to her that it was getting hard to tell. Real life wasn't supposed to have floating ball-creatures covered with hair, or have creatures ten feet tall and armed with oddball weapons. As Cheryl's sneaker-covered feet padded along the side of the road For how long, she just did not know…

What the girl did know was that if she did not reach some kind of civilization soon, she would waste away and starve to death out here. Some strange miracle kept bottles of health drinks along the road would keep her from dying earlier. Still, dying would come without food. Needing to drink and eat, needing to get back home to work that dead-end job, _that_ was real. This long road was real.

So walk she did—dusting off the butt of her jeans, doing a little stretching, then beginning to walk again. This was the steady rolling rhythm of her footsteps. Cheryl finished off this bottled pre-sweetened drink before tossing it to the ground. There was the definitive idea that there would be more of these drinks to keep her from getting thirsty. Hard post-spring grass and hard roadway ahead. How could she get ahead? How could she ever save enough money to do something with her life? At least she earned enough to have a life.

How long was this highway? Still walking along, this was getting to be tiresome. And her legs just hurt _so_ much! Forget about what she thought about the health drinks: This damned _highway _was not fit for human consumption. Forget about what most people said: Human legs were not fit for going such long distances. Yes, she was above a decent level of physical fitness with a minimum of exercise. Even being physically fit was not enough. This was approaching levels of ridiculousness. She read somewhere that there was once a time when some people were walked to death as a form of torture. Whatever forces of luck she pissed off must have decided to do this to her. _If starvation doesn't torture me to death, then the pain in my legs will, _she thought.

Then the pain decided for her. "_Aa-a-ah!_" she screamed, all full of a new and sharper pain that made her grab the back of her left thigh. The sharp _pain _in her left hamstring muscle made her stagger—then stop, hopping on her right leg to stay upright.

_That's it. I need to take a breather. _Keeping her left leg straight, the girl flexed her right leg in sitting down. Thoughts of those so-called health drinks came to mind. What if she was having some kind of reaction to them? God-damned health drinks! Those things could have been pulled out of a reality where they were sitting for maybe ten thousand years or something. And maybe this road was not set on Earth. Maybe running into Frank's light brought her so some reality that only _looked _like Earth?

_God-damn it… Frank, I know you can hear me, _thought Cheryl—feeling full of the pain that lanced through her body and straight to her head. Mixed in with that pain was a mental image of that _God-damned _creature wearing the silvery death-mask over the face, the rest of the creature hidden by the fuzzy bunny suit. _What the fuddle did you serve me? _

Of course there was no response to her thought-out accusatory thoughts. There was likely no one in this world that could communicate with her that way. She had become so used to being able to communicate with her mind that expecting to hear thoughts in response became second nature. All that time she was with Heather, communicating with thoughts seemed like the most normal thing in the world—in any world. Even that creepy bastard Frank was normal somehow, thoughts being the only way he could communicate. But Heather… That other girl was almost the same person as herself. In fact, there was a really long time after her Dad died that she herself went back to calling herself Heather. _Heather, why did you have to die…!_

Sitting here, sudden tears blurred Cheryl's eyes. She did not win. Killing all of those monsters did not mean anything. Shooting up that machine-building did nothing in the end. Wrecking Alessa's plan did nothing. It all meant nothing. Reason being, it meant nothing _because Heather was dead. _Seeing the dead body of a girl who looked _exactly _like her was like seeing her own dead body on that darkened highway. It was almost as if part of herself died in that other reality. Now her leg was strained, or maybe she was having a really bad physical reaction to those mysteriously placed health drinks and this road was going on _forever…!_

So lost in pain and suffering was the young lady crying and hurting by the side of this highway that she barely heard the sound of the car coming. The fleeting thought came of her throwing herself right in the path of the vehicle. If her neck broke, it would be over quickly. The same was true if her back was broken. Death by car was how Heather died. So why not?

Cheryl instead found herself struggling first to a crouching position. Then she painfully stood and turned herself around. She stuck out her right hand, thumb in the direction of the coming car—the hitchhiker's gesture that asked, _Going my way? Want to give me a ride, maybe? _

No way was this normally safe. It was not ever normally safe for a petite, blonde-haired nineteen-year-old girl to go hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere. There was no telling what kind of crazies were out here. Then again, Cheryl was not exactly a normal, petite, blonde-haired nineteen-year-old girl.

The vehicle was already decelerating rapidly as it approached. It gave a slight squeak of tires as it stopped. Thank goodness it was no more than that. Cheryl did not want anyone else dying in car accidents today.

There was a _click-clock _of car-door mechanism as the middle-aged driver stepped out of the vehicle and stood up. He was tall enough to look over the roof, his styled haircut pointing straight up, his face very familiar. "Heather? What are you doing out here?"

"I'm…" _I'm not your Heather, _was what she wanted to say to this version of Douglass. Just as she was not that girl borne of this reality, that Douglass was not her Douglass. The Douglass in her world drove the sort of vehicle one would expect of a private detective making an awful lot of money recently: a blazing red sports car. Why was this Douglass still driving a wood-colored station wagon? She closed her mouth and started again. "I'm sorta lost. It's kinda like a long story." A sharp pain in her left leg made her hop a little. "And its an even longer road…"

Douglass quickly walked round the back of the car. He still moved somewhat well for someone getting just beyond this end of middle age. He first opened the car's passenger-side door and bent down to lift her up—one hand beneath her knees, the other hand holding her upper back…. "Good thing you're not too tall!" he gruffed as he put her in the car. When he stood up straight again, there was a sharp pain in his back… A man his age ought not do that sort of thing.

Cheryl waited until Douglass was safely inside the car himself. She gave a final look to the vast grassy plains out there, lit by the midday sun. This was her reality now. If Heather came from this reality and Heather was _almost _like herself, then she ought to be a good fit. She then closed the door as soon as Douglass was in the driver's seat—and she was very sure to put on her seatbelt.

Douglass pulled on his own seatbelt before getting this car going forward again. "It was the weirdest thing, driving along this highway…" he began. "I heard some kind of weird advertising on the radio getting me to stop at a truck stop. Somehow I then get on this route." He shrugged. "Then there _you _were. What happened? I thought you left for another town or something."

What could Cheryl say? Should she tell him that she went to some weird other world, ran into Heather and had a few weird days before waking up after a car accident and finding the other girl _dead? _She sniffed aloud and wiped her eyes with the back of her right hand. "It's not important," she said. _At least, it's not important that you know. _She forced a smile and tried to sound cheerful. "So hey! What've _you _been up to? Have you been busy?"

"You'd better believe it!" responded Douglass. "I went hunting for that artifact for days. After a while, I tried looking into stolen-goods fencing operations. No luck, no leads. Then I went back to the client's town. Or I _thought_ I did. I _thought_ I was driving back to the right town." He shook his head. "Ended up at an abandoned bunch of buildings instead of a town at all. I tried calling my client, but that didn't help, either. No such number claimed the telephone operator. With no ownership and no one claiming it within twenty-four hours, now I can sell it or do something with it." He glanced over at her. "Open up the glove compartment."

Still mindful of the pain at the back of her left thigh, Cheryl did so—leaning forward a bit. A clicking twist of the glove compartment opening knob, and it opened. Frank's face grinned at her. "_Whoa…!_" she exclaimed, rearing back. Then she realized it was just Frank's mask: the silver death mask with its skull-like appearance, chromed eyepieces and gleaming forehead, the ears pointing up. If this was the creature's mask, she wondered about where it was—if it was still in this world. _Okay, _thought Cheryl, _where are you? Somewhere out there? Never mind. I don't care. I'm going to live my life no matter what. Do what you want, Frank, because you can't stop me. If you try to take me out of this reality, I'll take a gun and shoot you—probably right in the eye._

…

3.

…

_That stereo radio began to play a song. It began with droning instrumentals. Some of the instrumentals were electronic and sounding vaguely like a modified organ. With it began the soft and almost crying vocals of a sweet female singer.._

_She said…she _wouldn't _stay_

_She said…she _couldn't _stay!_

_She told me-e-e…_

_She would die-e-e…_

…_For lo-o-ove..._

_It's so dark in here, came the thought_…until eyes adjusted. There was some indirect light—glowing out from night-lights put in place to prevent tripping over misplaced items. It also made the three-bladed ceiling fan visible. That ceiling fan, it slowly whirred around and around in a lazy spinning motion. Its sound was a combination of ever-so-quiet electric motor and swishing of air.

_Don't you think…_

…_He knows?_

_Don't you think_

…_he cares?_

_Don't you think_

…_he dre-dre-dreams-s-s?_

_Don't you think_

…_he cri-i-ies!_

The girl came to feel warmth and comfort. She was lying in the soft gentleness of an oh-so-warm-and-comfortable bed. No, she did not feel like getting up, though awake. It was pretty damned late at night. Or it was pretty damned early in the morning. It was like nothing would get her out of this bed. Yes, so what if she had to work today. She would have to get up and get ready to ride the bus to the high school. First would come some light exercise, then a shower, brushing her teeth, brushing her hair. Thank goodness she was not one of those girls who had to shave her legs. Doing that would be just another nuisance…

Wait a damned second! High school? What the _Hell _was she thinking, high school? Thoughts of that place of secondary education set in a ritzy downtown district came to the forefront of her mind and rising up from memories. Also according to memory, this town had a ton of money. But these were not necessarily _her _memories. These annoying thoughts made the girl stir in bed.

Stirring made her suddenly becoming aware of someone else being in bed with her. _What the…? _Her eyes open wider, the girl tried to take in as much detail as possible with what little light there was provided by the night-lights. Above the shape of lithe shoulders, there was a head of hair that seemed styled in a short-cut way. Very carefully, very slowly, she reached over to touch the upper arm closest to herself. Yes, there _was _a person there and not just a shape in the covers. And she tried touching the head of hair. The hairstyle felt like her own. _Oh my gosh, who's touching me? _

_I didn't think that! _Indeed, the thought was not from her own mind. It was like one of her thoughts. Except it was not. It was like there was somebody else inside of her skull, reaching in and talking. _This is way too weird. Wake up and it'll all get normal. It's gotta be some kind of leftover from a dream. _

_A dream?_ _Like Hell it is, _came the returned thought. _What's going on here? How can there be somebody else thinkin' in my brain when I'm in my own brain? _Then the other girl sat up. _It's like somebody else can put thoughts into my…head… _

And _both _girls quickly rolled out of bed to go crouching on opposite sides of it. They were both standing up before the Heather did not even give that other girl a chance. She would not otherwise mind sleeping with somebody cute. But to wake up with someone in bed without her remembering was wrong and creepy.

"What the Hell are _you_ doing in _my_ bed?" asked one girl. She thought, _And_ _you'd better answer pretty quickly if you don't want me shrieking at the top of my lungs! I don't like screaming, but I can be pretty shrill when I want to be! _

"Like, hey! Wait a sec. You scream, and _you'll _be the one doing the explaining about sleeping in that bed with _me_," responded the other girl aloud. "And then you'll be the one…" _Like, did I just respond to what she said, or was it something that she was thinking? _

The first girl thought, _Why can I hear you in my head? Or maybe I don't? This could just be a nightmare and stuff. That doesn't make much sense, though, since we're both as solid as anything. If this was a dream, weird stuff would happen—like hairy head-balls floating through the air and mutant dogs eating dirt. _

"Um…" responded the other girl, _Can you hear me when I do this? I'm not saying anything out loud. It's all in my head. But if you know what I'm thinking, I want to see you nod or something. _To that, she saw the girl standing opposite her nod.

_This is wa-a-y weird, _thought the first girl. _Part of me is thinking that this can't be happening. But then there's how you understand what I'm thinking. I know that you know 'cause you're responding right back. Since when is this supposed to be normal? _

_I dunno, _responded the other girl. _Well, whatever. I can hear you in my mind, and you can hear the same. This must be that telepathy stuff I read about in that book. _She looke aroud. _This doesn't look like something traumatic, because that's when telepathy is supposed to happen—when people undergo some kind of tragedy. Like going back to high school—something we have to do anyway … _She paused_. Is there something familiar this? _

In the near-silence that followed, both girls regarded each other. They looked for differences. There were none as far as they could see. The only thing that deferred the sound of silence was the slight whirring overhead of the electric ceiling fan above. Its three blades continued to swirl through the dim air, going around and around and around…


	21. Chapter 21

About Completing _Silent Hill: The Manipulated Dead_

by Elliot Bowers

This amateur novelist finished writing yet another _Silent Hill _practice novel… Well, that's not fully accurate. I actually finished the raw typing on the last chapter some time last week. Don't ask for an exact time; sleep deprivation plays drunken Hell with one's chronological perceptions. And don't say that I use "big words," either: The young 'uns at my places of academic toil re-state that complaint too often! _Yes, _AngelicaA, that includes some of _your _fellow students. What _are _they teaching you all at that new school anyway? The buttoned-down white shirt is off, my sleeves are shortened, and now comes time to yell about it all! Let's rock; this how I roll.

There are an awful lot of things for this amateur novelist to be anti-happy about. Darned tootin', I'm an amateur novelist! That means my time is track-lock dedicated to writing full and proper novels. This does not mean plunking away at piddling nothing-little short stories that cater to short attention spans. This also does not mean entering an altered state of consciousness and diddling out some vaguely rhythmic phrases to call it poetry. It means doing what real and proper writers all ought to be doing: writing nicely sized volumes that take readers on journeys while giving them full thematic meals along the way. I am here to do the real deal. And to anyone who can't even fake the funk long enough to do the same at least once in your life, it is too darned bad, gosh-darn it!

This guy at this keyboard can't even stand short stories any forking more. When folks leaf over hard-earned currency to buy a game, a DVD-movie or—dare I say—a _book,_ they are _not _going to want something just to while away a piddling fifteen or twenty minutes. Everything commercially available is supposed to be bigger, better and in more quantity. With DVDs, one expects _at least _a ninety-minute romp—not including all the cutesy extras that the cheap-butt movie studies wanted to stop including a few years back. And games are not games unless they have over six hours' worth of gameplay. Chunk on the idea of some game industry folks of demanding no less than twenty hours' worth of time, and you just may see where the sidewalk is going—not where the sidewalk ends. Likewise, when one boots up the net-surfing machine and sits down to do some reading, one should not get a haphazard page or ten. We want more, because more is more.

So if you're going to write a story, dang-nabbit, it had better be of proper duration. What is proper? Proper would be more than forty thousand words. Better yet, _best _yet, make that tale over 200 pages in length—double-spaced in a Times New Roman Font, one-inch margins all around. Oh, by the byway, don't even ask me to review anything under forty thousand words unless you're a student at one of my schools! It's no more forking short stories for this dude. Even more by the way, this _does _have something to do with me adding to the amazingly long roster of writers who have dedicated novel-length talent and time to making _yet another _Silent Hill work.

What _does _this have to do with this latest tale about our beloved Alessa-Heather-Cheryl—the character widely and succinctly known as Heather? It's all about youthful angst and anger, struggle and troubles, frustrations and flibbertigibbets. The character Heather has it real hard in life, the way I have written it. She had this somewhat crummy job of working a bookstore and barely paying her half of the rent. Then some nightmarish mess from her questionable past begins intruding on her life. And here I am as a struggling amateur novelist in trying to hold things down—me being someone in the 18-35 aged bracket, somewhat fresh out of college and the military… I've got frustrations, and so does my version of Heather. In my country, anyone aged 18-35 is having a _Hell _of a lot of challenge in getting started in life. Who doesn't?

What the Hell kind of struggle could this amateur novelist have to deal with? That is, what could _possibly _be as bad as having demons and crazy cults try to pull your life into Hell? Why not try—again—the annoyances, frustrations, and downright stupid things that an amateur novelist has to put up with: stuck-up professional writers who hate amateurs (such as Anne Rice not quite appreciating us folks), fellow amateurs who hate following the basics of written English, and the fact that even the professionals of the publishing industry steadfastly refuse to respect any one set of standards other than their own anal-retentive and Ivory-Tower beliefs that sometimes end up being flat-assed wrong anyway! Those are the demons an amateur novelist has to deal with—and more!

Of _course _Heather has it tough. Heather is an American…sort of. Heather is also in that oh-so-squeezed 18-35 aged bracket that is having such a Hellish time economically and sociologically in getting by. Yup, there I go with those big words again! Well, deal with it. Just as my interpretation of things would have a real-life Heather struggling and scraping to get by in life without proper documentation, we should all struggle a bit.

Or maybe reading my work _was _a struggle? For those of you who bothered to read my work, and for those of you who have computer knowledge, I am giving you a little something to use in the PC version of Silent Hill 3. Yeah, this amateur novelist is a sort of game addict. It beats being a drunken alcoholic—as are many writers. And it is cheaper. Go here to get a package of goodies. And if this link doesn't work, e-mail me or something. This is something to make the Silent Hill 3 experience last a wee bit longer.

http/ eliotbauers dot tripod dot com forward-slash sh3modtool.zip


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